One of the important lessons that we surely ought to have learnt about the agro-processing sector is that despite the still limited merited attention that it enjoys in terms of official support for its growth and development, its role in transforming what we in Guyana refer to as ‘hustlers’ into substantive businesspersons cannot be swept aside.
More to the point, the beneficiaries from the growth of the sector, have been, to a considerable extent, working class women who, in many if not most instances, used agro-processing as a tool through which to seek to make their way out of abject poverty. In a sense, the time and resources which those women devoted to their agro-processing start-ups were hardly investments in the conventional sense of the term, but, in effect, leaps of faith that offered no iron-clad assurances of meaningful material returns. What these women brought to the table, mostly, was no more than a determination to find an avenue through which they could subsidize their family incomes.
What is, these days, referred to as agro-processing derived to a considerable extent from ‘hit or miss’ kitchen experiments that pressed fruits and vegetables into service to produce ‘tryout’ jams, jellies and other condiments. These, over time, ‘graduated’ from the dinner tables of some of the earliest ‘manufacturers’ to the roadside stalls that offered mostly snacks for sweet-toothed children. In its earliest forms, agro-processed products were, to a large extent, heavily-spiced, sugar-based fruit (jams, jellies and pickles, mostly) which became popular both at conventional dinner table ‘spreads’ as well as the well-remembered ‘lickables’ offered from roadside trays in untidily torn pieces brown paper, mostly to sweet-toothed children. The earliest forms of agro-processed goods survived largely because they were relatively inexpensive to manufacture, the fruits and vegetables that were necessary for the manufacturing process being, for the most part, freely available, or else, relatively inexpensive. Later on, these products were able, for a while at least, to ‘duck under’ the contemporary packaging and labeling and food safety strictures which, these days, compel contemporary manufacturers to operate within stringent rules. The incremental popularization of agro-processed products not only saw an increased demand for the various offerings but also compelled manufacturers to ‘raise their game.’
Officially sanctioned packaging and labeling requirements began to raise the bar higher and understandably, raw materials, fruits and vegetables underwent incremental price rises commensurate with growing demand. What changed too was the culture of preparation in what, by now, was being referred to as “the agro-processing sector.” While to their credit the working class women who had ‘invented’ agro processing in their cluttered kitchens have never really lost their share of the sector, pressure to raise standards forced them into forms of training (and embracing at least a handful of basic technological tools) that helped to enhance their finished products as well as to develop a greater awareness of the phyto-sanitary strictures that were now moving hand in hand with the growth in market demand for agro produce.
A significant but frequently overlooked development in the ‘sector,’ was the impact which the growth of agro-processing has had on the value placed on the various fruits and vegetables that represented the essential raw materials necessary for the growth of the agro-processing sector. The higher value that began to be placed on the fruit, particularly, that have become the important ‘raw material’ for the production process in the agro-processing sector (mango, cherry, soursop and pineapple come readily to mind) meant that fruit trees were no longer left to the mercy of urchin raiders and fruits that had once been used to ‘pelt dog’ (as we say in Guyana) began to appear on municipal market stalls, their pricing a reflection on the rising status of the agro-processing sector.
Here in Guyana, our agro-processing sector had always been an inadequate microcosm of a much more refined, more sophisticated industry, driven by technology that turned out more ‘refined,’ more presentable products. Here it has to be said that the efforts of the local agro-processing sector to metamorphose into the more technology-driven ‘versions’ that obtained in developed countries have developed slowly and ponderously. Accordingly, while it can be said that the sector has now attracted more high-profile interest, the understandable sloth in investing in labour-saving technology and raising product presentation standards have meant that the sector in Guyana remains some distance away from the standard that applies in the developed world.
More than that, not anywhere near enough has been done to secure international market access for locally manufactured produce even as the volume of agro-processed commodities being imported into the country continues to increase. In sum, it should be said that officialdom in Guyana continues to demonstrate a level of attention to the agro processing sector commensurate with its potential contribution as much to poverty alleviation as to the overall growth of the economy. To their credit, some of the successors to the country’s earliest entrants into the agro-processing sector have survived, even grown, though official attention to the potential of the sector to create jobs and to enhance Guyana’s reputation abroad has been less than impressive.
Local promotional pursuits are limited and has, over the years, been not nearly sufficient evidence of an official willingness to use agro-processing as a means of enhancing Guyana’s international reputation. What can be said without fear of persuasive contradiction is that, here in Guyana, such growth as has been witnessed in the agro-processing sector has, over the years, been attributable much more to the doggedness and determination of the small and medium-sized investors in the sector than to any kind of notable hands-on interest on the part of government.
Going forward, a few critical questions must be raised and answered. Not least among these being whether or not the recent multi-million dollar investment by the Ministry of Agriculture, under the watch of the Guyana Marketing Corporation, in a number of agro-processing manufacturing facilities will begin to realize meaningful returns within a reasonable time frame. Here, it has to the said that there are times when the official pronouncements made by the Ministry of Agriculture reminds one of the saying that the noise in the market is not the sale. Secondly, agro-processing has made its point as a poverty alleviator, a high-value entrepreneurial stream, a potential lucrative contributor to the raising of the profile of locally manufactured products on the international market.
Guyana’s agro-processing sector also seems set to play an important role in the current regional pursuits associated with its current food security undertakings, including the ongoing creation of a regional food security hub and the realization of the 25×2025 extra-regional food import reduction goal. We are yet to receive a comprehensive report on the pace of progress towards the creation of the Food Terminal up to this time, and the 2023 Barbados Agro Fest event is scheduled to be held later this month. If, as now appears to be the case, Guyana’s agro-processing sector is being moved closer to the long-promised (and still to be delivered) regional food security pact, then much of the onus here lies with the initiatives that point to clear and unmistakable initiatives that seek to further raise the profile of the agro-processing in Guyana. As things stand, much of this is up to the government.
