For much of the past week, scores of Guyanese agro-processors have been busying themselves seeking out the most cost-effective ways of travelling to Barbados to attend the sister CARICOM country’s February 24-26 Agro Fest, the closest they would have gotten in recent years to an opportunity to display their agro produce on a stage outside of Guyana. Back in October last year the government had turned down a request from the Guyanese/American Chamber of Commerce for a state subsidy to allow for Guyanese participation in last October’s Florida Trade Expo. That decision had left a great many local Agro Processors brooding.
This time around, it appeared that a limited state subvention had been made available to allow for meeting the cost of shipping agro produce to Barbados as well as meeting, either partially or entirely, the cost of air travel for the vendors themselves. That said, the procedures for accessing these subventions appeared to be smothered in bureaucracy so that a handful of local Agro Processors who had declared their intention to get to Barbados by hook or crook, as we say in Guyana, conceded to this newspaper that they considered the event worthwhile to meet the cost of their own air fares.
This year’s Barbados Agro Fest event is underpinned by a much larger regional significance than has been the case previously. Last year, host Head of Government, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, had teamed up with Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali, the two jointly becoming the standard bearers for the novel idea of a regional Food Security Terminal, an initiative that had assumed a weighty significance in the wake of regional food security ‘jitters’ as well as a broad regional commitment to reduce extra-regional food imports by 25% by 2025. With earlier regional food security undertakings, led, in the past, singularly by Guyana, having failed to materialize, this time around both President Ali and Prime Minister Mottley will be expected to use the forum to provide a pleasing report on the pace of progress towards the completion of the Food Terminal.
For Guyana, however, Agro Fest 2023 presents another opportunity. It provides the latest test of the ability of Guyanese Agro Processors who, in some instances, have made a considerable mark at home, to prove that their products can make an impactful entry into the wider regional and international markets. Over the past two years, the growth of what are still modest mostly women-led businesses manufacturing and marketing mostly fruit-based condiments, has been unmistakable though, that said, the transformation of these small businesses into bigger ones has been limited largely by the modest size of the local market and what has been limited state support in helping Agro Processors to grow both their enterprises as well as markets.
While the country’s Ministry of Agriculture continues to sing the praises of the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) there exists no serious evidence that the entity possesses the capacity to undertake a serious strategy-driven international marketing blitz. While, therefore, the (GMC) is expected to be represented at Agro Fest, Agro Processors travelling to Barbados for the event have told the Stabroek Business that the primary purpose for them being there will be to seek to cement their own individual marketing ties with the Barbadian and, hopefully, wider Caribbean market, though they admit that such logistical support as the GMC may be willing to provide will not be turned aside.
Stabroek Business was told, meanwhile, that Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Office for Investment Dr. Peter Ramsaroop will travel to Barbados at the Head of a team of representatives of local business enterprises. Coinciding as it does with the current regional food security clamour, this year’s Agro Fest is also expected to focus on the role that the region’s agriculture sector can play in shoring up the food security bona fides of the smaller Caribbean territories that have reportedly been facing varying levels of food insecurity. Here in Guyana, while the government has recently completed the creation and commissioning of a number of Agro Processing production facilities in several regions outside of the capital, it remains to be seen whether those facilities can move to the level of production within a reasonable time frame, a circumstance that will both boost the country’s agro-processing bona fides and provide facilities for the farm produce in communities benefitting from the newly established agro processing factories.
