With viable means of existence in hinterland communities outside of the gold mining sector being historically difficult to come by, the search for alternatives has led to small-scale agriculture which, while being sufficient to satisfy largely subsistence requirements, has not, in too many cases, been expanded to lucrative commercial levels.
Peanut cultivation has long been one of the favoured agricultural pursuits in parts of Region Nine. Globally, widely used in the food and beverage industry in the form of flour, peanut butter and a range of snacks, peanuts can make an invaluable contribution to the further growth of a fast-growing local agro-processing sector.
So when it was disclosed earlier in November that Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, had commissioned an agro-processing facility at St Ignatius, it appeared that the development had opened up prospects for new agro-processing pursuits that would broaden the base of local agro-produce in a sector that has done much to secure national attention in recent years.One of the common concerns associated with the undertaking of technology-driven projects (like factories) in interior regions of Guyana has to do with the challenges associated with providing adequate ‘tech support’ for these ventures in terms of personnel who can competently oversee the operation of those pieces of technology-driven equipment. We know little, for example, about whether or not the embracing of such equipment is attended by the acquisition of adequate skills associated with considerations of maintenance and repairs.
One expects, all things being equal, that facilities like the recently commissioned peanut processing facility at St Ignatius would be attended not just by reliable electricity generation support (which, of course, is an essential operating requisite) but also by the technical skills and tools that would ensure the efficient maintenance of the equipment. Here, it has to be said that we have grown painfully accustomed to enduring less than optimal use of facilities in interior regions of the country on account of either unreliable electricity supply or maintenance and repairs capabilities.
Nor do government officials from across the political divide, preoccupied as they customarily are with the ‘public image’ returns that derive from such announcements, ever appear to unduly trouble themselves about the fallout that can and often does derive from these omissions.
Beyond the challenges associated with ensuring the sustained efficiency of sophisticated equipment, particularly in interior regions, there is also the issue of ensuring the optimal use of what one assumes is costly equipment by having sufficient raw material to ‘feed’ it.
An altogether different type of challenge arises here. This has to do with ensuring that the various tiers of the cultivation process necessary to realize yield that is both qualitatively and quantitatively adequate, are properly synchronized. Here again, there are various levels of efficiency that are required, ranging from the different aspects of the production process at the farm level to the efficient delivery of the agricultural produce to the factory for processing. Once these critical operating tiers are addressed, it remains for the finished product to be suitably packaged and moved to the market (or pre-market) stages, presumably in the capital.
Here, it has to be said that here in Guyana there are usually operating breakdowns at one or another stage of the process. There are instances in which it has appeared that these breakdowns have been due to the inefficiency/indifference of state agencies in putting the requisite management and maintenance/servicing regime in place and failing in some instances to implement and enforce operating protocols.
One of the state media reports on the launch of the new agro processing facility in Region Nine asserts that it “will allow farmers in St. Ignatius and other surrounding villages the opportunity to process peanuts and cashew nuts.” What is significant about this observation is that it makes references to “an opportunity,” rather than to suggest that the installation of the piece of equipment will automatically cause the production of processed cashew nuts et al to increase automatically. One makes this observation if only to make the point that the inflation of positive but modest steps way beyond their substantive significance, when taken on their own, appear sufficiently repetitive to have long lost even their substantive propaganda value.
When there is evidence that the piece of equipment is up and running, that its operating and maintenance regimes are in place, and that the operators are not only trained to utilise the piece of equipment but to be acutely sensitive to its maintenance requirements and when it begins to make a difference to the well-being of the farmers who provide the produce for processing and do so consistently, over a period of time, then, perhaps, justifiable reason to sing its praises arises. People have long learnt to see clear through the transparency of the monotonous official trumpet-blowing by government that so often blows up in its face.
