The Agriculture Committee of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), spearheaded by Chairman Mr. Brian Edwards, met with the Minister of Agriculture in September to explore ways in which the Ministry of Agriculture and the private sector can collaborate during Agriculture month 2022.

The engagement resulted in the Minister of Agriculture pledging his Ministry’s support to the Agri Committee (GCCI) and its partners to conduct a series of Awareness and Training workshops focusing on farmers especially women and youth. The Minister implored that such an initiative must continue beyond Agriculture month and spread out to the various farming communities throughout Guyana.

Consequently, a team comprised of both private sector organizations and semi-autonomous agencies entered into a collaborative partnership to deliver awareness and training programmes to farmers, with support from the Ministry of Agriculture and its agencies.

Stakeholder businesses include the Inter-American Institute for Corporation on Agriculture (ICCA), Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI), Guyana Food Safety Authority (GFSA), Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED), Small Business Bureau (SBB), World University Service of Canada (WUSC), and Empower Guyana.

The initiative was launched in region 6 and four (4) sessions were held focusing on four key areas, to help farmers, women, and youth build their capacity by encouraging them to use climate-smart technology such as the use of micronutrients to boost production, improve yield and the quality of their produce which ultimately leads to improved income.

Farmers were also urged to treat agriculture as a business so that they can produce to sell rather than selling what they produce as this will help them to access local and eventually overseas markets.  Information on access to financing, business function, good agricultural practices, understanding and honoring contractual obligations, and access to incubator services were also presented to producers in Albion, East Bank Berbice, Black Bush Polder, and Crab Wood Creek.

The Agriculture Committee tremendously thanks the Ministry of Agriculture and its agencies including the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI), Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC), and the Guyana Food Safety Authority (GFSA) for their unwavering support.

The committee also extends a special thank you to the Extension Officers from both NARI and GMC who were instrumental in making the sessions in region 6 a success by ensuring that Farmers were invited and all logistics for the events were in place.

GCCI recognizes Agriculture as one of the most important productive sectors in Guyana’s economy. In this regard, the chamber applauds the concrete actions taken by the Agriculture Committee to address the challenges facing farmers generally and especially women and youth, and encourages them to begin to prepare themselves to access overseas markets and contribute to President, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali’s vision of reducing CARICOM’s food import bill by 25 percent by 2025.

The committee has since completed the first round of workshops in region 6 reaching a total of one hundred and fifteen (115) farmers and agro-processors. The committee plans to expand to regions two (2), three (3), four (4), five (5), and ten (10) in 2023. GCCI looks forward to continued support from the Ministry of Agriculture and participating partners.