With an official report on the takeaways for the Guyanese contingent at the February 24-28 Agro Fest in Barbados still to be made public, a reliable evaluation of the role that the event would have played in advancing the external marketability for local agro produce would be impossible to undertake.
What took almost fifty (50) local Agro Processors to the three-day event was a keenness to determine whether the modest sense of market breakthrough that had been felt by those who attended the 2022 event had, over the past year, been transformed into a growth in market demand. As of now, we are still unable to make that determination. Here, one assumes, that a report on an evaluation of the portents and outcomes of Guyana’s 2023 Agro Fest experience and the quicker that these are forthcoming, the better. There are few if any optional yardsticks that can be used to measure those outcomes.
What the Stabroek Business sought to do was to seek the views of a handful of the local Agro Processors who had ‘made it’ to Barbados.
Additionally, this newspaper also benefitted from some specific and useful insights provided by the Guyana Office for Investment. (GOINVEST), though a more fulsome assessment of the 2023 Agro Fest ‘experience’ and how this might impact on the fortunes of local agro-processing sector is still manifestly merited. Here, one would think that apart from GO-INVEST, the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) also has a role to play.
The affordability challenges confronting local Agro Processors seeking to travel to events outside of Guyana have long impacted their ability to access the more lucrative external market opportunities. State ‘sponsorship’ for such events has always been limited and where it becomes available, can sometimes be attended by some measure of bureaucratic jousting that have to do with issues like criteria for state sponsorship. There appeared to be some of that this time around; at least this is how it seemed to some of the Agro Processors with whom the Stabroek Business spoke.
Insofar as the Stabroek Business was informed there were no profound business breakthroughs for Guyanese participants in Barbados. Much of the experience was about further deepening what is still limited experience in establishing secure marketing ‘beach heads’ in Barbados. Contextually, the predominant pursuit was product display though there were a handful of bilateral agreements that must now await concretization into hoped-for ‘full-blown’ business deals.
Kibbyann Chester-Harding, GO-INVEST’s Director of Export Promotion wanted to ensure that the positive ‘takeaways’ from Guyana’s participation in Agro Fest 2023 were placed on record. The Guyanese contingent, she told the Stabroek Business, was afforded a cordial welcome, with some of the Barbadian attendees at the event making the point that they were particularly keen on encountering the Guyana contingent and their various ‘offerings.’ She alluded to “a few companies” who are currently in discussions with business houses in Barbados that might go further.
The first of the two positive ‘takeaways’ for Guyanese businesses that, reportedly, has been secured, so far, derives from a signed ‘deal’ between the local company, Precision Global – which manufactures Virgin Coconut Oil, Coconut Chips, Coconut Flour and Refined Coconut Oil and the Barbadian Company, Armstrong Agencies under which the Barbadian company has agreed to serve as a Distributor for Precision Global products. The Agreement, Stabroek Business was told, derived from earlier discussions. The Stabroek Business also learnt that some Precision Products are already been displayed in outlets in Barbados.
The second ‘concrete’ accomplishment, up to this time, derives from an Agreement signed between the local company Full Works Packaging Products and Export Barbados and Invest Barbados under which the Barbados company will import twenty-foot containers of assorted packaged food items. Meanwhile, according to Chester-Harding, another local company, Comfort Sleep, is currently in discussions with several Barbadian businesses.
Another reported positive outcome for the Guyana contingent at Agro-Fest 2023 was the establishment of a relationship between the Linden-based company, Taz Food Manufacturing, a company offering pre-cooked meals, Green Seasonings, Garlic Sauce and Pepper Sauces an d the Barbados Manufacturing Association on the likely purchase of ‘Ration Packages’ prepared by the local company.
