Drug finds in shipments from Guyana chief concern for Canadian agro-buyers

A team of agro buyers from Canada said Canadian businesses’ interest in sourcing products from Guyana is tempered by their concerns about the prevalence of drug finds inside shipments of local food products.

Veteran trade expert Bertrand Walle, who led the mission to Guyana, said it was challenging and the drug finds in local shipments was the main concern among Canadian business circles. He also outlined a number of areas that local growers and agro-processors still need to perfect in order to improve their readiness to sell their products on the Canadian market.

Walle, of the Trade Facilitation Office in Canada, led the team of buyers and distributors from Toronto and Montreal on a four-day buyers’ mission to Guyana which closed on Thursday, a press release from the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association said. Stakeholders at the event included the Canadian Executive Services Organisation along with local representatives from the Guyana office of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, the Guyana National Bureau of Standards,