For much of 2019 the Stabroek Business has sought to focus editorial attention on the small business sector, particularly the agro processing sub sector and even more specifically the emergence of women as the main drivers behind agro processing this year. We have noted and commented on particularly the shift in agro processing pursuits from the largely kitchen experimentation that it used to be to viable businesses that have, among other things, engendered in many Guyanese a sense of pride and accomplishment in what they have achieved through the application of inclinations and talents which, not too many years previously had been regarded as outcomes of no more than ‘tinkering around” in the kitchen.
The full emergence of the agro processing sector, it should be noted, has taken place, quietly, unobtrusively and has taught us to place a commercial value not only on what we loosely call kitchen skills but on the raw material, fruit and vegetables which, previously, in times of glut, used to be left to ‘drop and rot.’ That is no longer the case even though some amount of wastage still results from challenges associated with moving large volumes of agricultural produce from interior to coastal areas. Transportation difficulties, of course, or more particularly our failure to remedy them, have been, along with reliable electricity supply, among the primary reasons for the slow growth of the manufacturing facet of the agricultural sector.
There are those who would argue, with some justification, in our view, that the women-driven growth of the agro processing sector has been, to some extent, retarded by gender-driven prejudices that, for example, limit access by women engaged in small businesses to financing for their business ventures. If it is true that some local women entrepreneurs stand on an equal footing with men insofar as public recognition is concerned, that is largely the exception rather than the rule. Our experience of engaging women with modest but decidedly viable business initiatives who are still denied access to the various forms of support necessary to grow their businesses is that in far too many instances they are not taken seriously.
The challenges, for example, faced by small scale local women entrepreneurs seeking to market their products, whether at home or abroad, are many and these include a seeming reluctance by financing agencies to back their businesses. Many distressing stories continue to emerge from the experiences of working class women seeking to make their way in the world of business. One example that comes to mind at this time is the instance of a 22 year-old young woman known to the Stabroek Business, an enormously motivated and highly talented agro processor who produces high-quality sweet potato flour who, for more than two years, and having paid quite a few tens of thousands in charges to the Lands and Survey Department to expedite access to a plot of land for the cultivation of raw material, remains on a ‘waiting list.’
Entrepreneurship may still be a predominantly male purview but this year, particularly, there has been more than sufficient women who have ‘come through’ as more than competent businesspeople in areas of business traditionally dominated by men to afford them a greater measure of official attention. Here – and we have made this point before – it is not just a question of further strengthening those already existing state institutions set up to deal with women empowerment but also for our local Business Support Organisations (BSOs), not least the Private Sector Commission, to step up their game in terms of advancing women-led businesses. Not just in agro processing but in other areas of entrepreneurial endeavour where there is a greater presence of women investors (craft, cosmetics and clothing come immediately to mind) there still persists a certain measure of indifference on the part of the BSOs.
Up until now not a great deal is known about the recently created women’s private sector body though one hopes that it seeks to serve and will serve as, among other things, a bridge that will help small women-led businesses grow.
Up until now (and one hopes that this does not continue to persist over the longer term) the promised local content opportunities deriving from oil and gas would appear to benefit, overwhelmingly, those sectors traditionally occupied by men. There are, however, a host of other opportunities, many of which will, we hope, provide openings in areas of business in which women are known to be strong. It is a matter of expanding the focused private sector local content discourse to take account of the opportunity that it affords for the emergence of a new, more empowered, better resourced cadre of women in business who can challenge the prevailing gender bias.
