For various reasons, Rhadika Basdeo makes a compelling case for her being named by the Ministry of Agriculture as the country’s Agro-Processor of The Year. Her far from unchallenging entrepreneurial journey had begun in March 2021 when COVID-19 was in the throes of performing its frenzied Danse Macabre and when the faint-hearted had set aside even their livelihoods and fled in terror. For Rhadika, confronted with the responsibility of motherhood, not even the globally fearsome malady could deter her. Her decision to confront the killer, she reasoned, was altogether a function of her circumstances. What obtains today is a successful agro processing enterprise named Basdeo dynasty, and, the Proprietrix declares, “It was worth it.”
What exists today is a thriving enterprise that had derived from circumstances that had spelt gloom, perhaps even doom, in the first instance. Rhadika’s father, a vendor in the Bourda Market, had posed her a business challenge. The sizeable volumes of mangoes harvested from the family farm that had been ‘doing well’ at the Market had become confronted with a sharp dip in demand. The emergency demanded a family ‘huddle’ out of which came the idea of a commercial ‘excursion’ into Mango Achar. It was here that the family’s jaunt down the Agro Processing road began.