Sixty farmers in six regions of the country recently benefited from technical assistance under a programme that involves the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
The Farmers Organisations (FOs) that benefited from this exercise were; the Central Mahaicony Perth Village Farmers Association in Region 5; West Berbice Sheep and Goat Farmers Association in Region 5; Pomeroon Beekeepers Association in Region 2; Pomeroon Export Producers Association in Region 2; Gibraltar/Fyrish Farmers Association in Region 6; Mocha Arcadia Multipurpose Agriculture Cooperative in Region 4; Medicine from Trees in Region 9 and Blue Flame Women’s Group in Region 1.
A release from the FAO yesterday said that the Farmers’ Organizations for Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (FO4ACP) programme focuses on empowering Farmers’ Organizations to participate in sustainable food value chains effectively. The programme is continuing under the partnership of the FAO and PROCASUR.
On its website, PROCASUR describes itself as a global organisation specialised in knowledge management for rural innovation.
The FAO release said that from August 7th to the 14th, the partnering team engaged the 60 farmers to build functional and operational capacities to improve the quality of services they provide.
The exercise was a continuation from last May when the team visited the FOs following a National Learning Route under the theme “Come up in the Value Chain.” During those visits, each organization was entrusted with developing a short-term Innovation Plan that would enable them to increase their associative and entrepreneurial capacities.
To support the implementation of these innovative plans, FAO and PROCASUR convened a nine-day technical mission to connect the Innovation Plans with a medium-term Organizational Development Plan that will receive technical and financial aid from the FO4ACP programme.
These development plans, which have been tailored based on each organisation’s unique circumstance, geography, and needs, will focus on a number of areas, including business development, marketing, good governance practices, and production enhancements.
The FO4ACP project is funded by the European Commission through The International Fund for Agricultural Development and is being implemented across Regional Latin America and seven Caribbean countries, including Guyana.
