There is a persuasive argument for asserting that the encouraging growth of the country’s agro-processing sector over a period of a decade or more has been due, overwhelmingly, to the diligence and inventiveness of local agro processors, mostly women with little or no formal training in the discipline, and even without the profusion of technology that has attended the incremental global growth of the sector.
Here in Guyana, the success of the sector can be attributed, overwhelmingly, to the creativity and the doggedness of the contemporary Agro Processors whose skills are either self-taught, or else, handed down through generations, and benefitting from gradual growth through trial and error by women whose primary role, as home makers and income-earners, invariably, left them no choice. The markets that emerged here in Guyana from the earliest excursions into the ‘manufacture’ of agro-processed goods, emerged largely from neighbourhood patronage and from the street corner stands. Here, the target markets were the ‘sweet tooth culture’ to be found in closely knit, poor communities and from the need for parents to find snack foods for their school-aged children.
It took several decades for the virtues of packaging and labeling to be fully embraced by the agro-processing sector, the development of a product-presentation culture deriving largely from competition to catch the eyes of the more ‘picky’ potential consumers and the commercial outlets which, by now, were beginning to recognize the potential gain of using the more convivial environment of their distribution outlets to push the sales of the range of agro-processed commodities that were emerging from kitchens in mostly ordinary homes. As an aside, it was largely the product-promotion opportunities which the established retail outlets offered that served to accelerate the appreciation of the ‘manufacturers’ for phytosanitary and production presentation considerations.
A worthwhile development arising out of the growth of the agro-processing sector in Guyana was the significantly enhanced recognition of the value-added potential of fruits and vegetables which, historically, had either been confined to cooking pots for transformation into conventional meals, or else, confined to unbearably wasteful disposal as though they were no more than yesterday’s garbage. It was, overwhelmingly, the growth of the country’s agro processing sector that engendered a real appreciation of the commercial value of the fruit and vegetable sector in Guyana. Indeed, outside of their value as conventional ‘cooking pot materiel,’ the value of fruit and vegetables in Guyana has benefitted from much higher market value and by extension, much higher prices through the accelerated popularization of the agro processing sector.
At its inception, the agro-processing sector in Guyana was largely the domain of the working class ‘hustler,’ the unemployed housewife who had taught herself to be creative out of a recognition that creativity could become a vehicle to an additional source of income. All of this was occurring long prior to the expansion of the curricula of institutions like the Carnegie School of Home Economics which allowed for providing formal training for (mostly) women who had become convinced of the opportunity which the agro-processing industry offered. In Guyana, official attention to the agro-processing appeared to emerge mostly out of the use of the sector, limited though it was, as a benchmark for incremental growth of Guyana’s emerging reputation as a standout food producer in the region.
Indeed, agro processing, over time, became ‘anointed’ by government as one of the barometers with which to measure Guyana’s inventiveness as a food producer, never mind the fact that up to that time, the sector was not only confined largely to the kitchens of inventive working class women, but had not yet begun to benefit from a sensitivity to product presentation and phytosanitary considerations, virtues that were beginning to emerge mostly from the country’s glimpses into the much more advanced agro processing regime (which decidedly embraced much higher phytosanitary and product presentation standards) in developed countries. The acceptance of agro processing as a bona fide economic sector in Guyana resulted largely from the political ‘push’ from which it benefitted during the early post-independence years.
However, it has to be said that the slow growth of the sector resulted largely from the financial costs associated with the country making the transition from what can be termed the working class ‘kitchen’ experiment to a structured, well-financed, technology-driven industry that was in step with western standards. The establishment of the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) as a state institution to “promote and support the development of agriculture in Guyana through the provision of a range of technical and regulatory services to the sector,” was, to a considerable extent, an acknowledgement by the state that both the agriculture and agro-processing sectors had matured sufficiently to give cause for the creation of a local institution suitably equipped to market agricultural produce, including the by-products of the sector at home, in the region and beyond.
While the GMC is customarily promoted as a Department of the Ministry of Agriculture charged with the promotion of the country’s agricultural and agro-processed goods locally, regionally and internationally, questions have arisen as to whether:
1. The GMC is ideally positioned, as a Department of a government ministry (the Ministry of Agriculture) to secure the autonomy and flexibility to function as a marketing entity in a largely private sector-driven regional and international market, and:
2. Whether, as currently structured and staffed, the GMC is possessed of the human resource base to lead the regional and international charge to promote the country’s agro-processing sector.
Whether the GMC, given its present resource base, and confined by the dictates of a government ministry is not, in the first instance, hamstrung by that ‘constraint’ is a question that needs to be answered. While it is not a question, here, of seeking the removal of the state agency role that defines the GMC, it is a question of acknowledging the constraints of the bureaucracy that defines a government ministry and all too frequently retards the prerogative of autonomy which better positions the agency to function effectively. Put differently, GMC lacks the autonomy to effectively pursue its mandate – particularly in the realm of external marketing outside of the dictates set by the subject Minister in that Ministry.
It will be recalled that back in 2020, the Agriculture Minister not only alluded to the desirability to restructure the GMC to render it “more responsive to the needs of the people.” At that time he also committed the Ministry to ensuring “that we spend the resources to give you the kind of guidance needed, and establish the necessary infrastructure. “ Simultaneously, the Minister also alluded to “plans to buy produce from farmers on a large scale and resell them to inter-governmental agencies,” a mechanism which he said was designed to “reduce spoilage and waste, generate revenue, create new markets and create jobs both within and without the region.” More than two years later it would be instructive to learn just where we are in terms of determining the extent to which any or all of these undertakings have been realized.
When account is taken of the success realized by other regional product promotion and marketing organizations like the Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) – which, incidentally, like the GMC – is a state-owned entity, the comparison is instructive. Suitably staffed and empowered to spread its wings across the globe in the aggressive promotion of Jamaican products and its investment opportunities, JAMPRO’s success as an Ambassador for Guyana’s sister CARICOM country is a function of the entity being suitably staffed and empowered to execute its mandate outside of the controlling/intervening of the substantive ‘dead hand’ of politics. That luxury has, for the most part, always been denied to the GMC.
