Farmers’ Market should target venues outside the capital, aim for greater vendor participation

Fashion personality Sonia Noel (left)was among the numerous visitors to Saturday’s Farmers’ Market who stopped by the stall displaying Shine Agri Manafacturing’s sweet potato cake mix

If the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) can claim to have attracted a fair measure of public attention and patronage at last Saturday’s final Farmers Market for 2019, it must surely be aware that it will have to set the bar somewhat higher next year if it is going to be able to lay legitimate claim to helping to create an expanded market for the increasing volumes of local agro produce, condiments and cosmetics being produced in Guyana.

A farmers’ market is a retail ‘space’ established to allow farmers and other vendors to sell foods which they produce directly to consumers, its advantage reposing first, in the removal of the ‘middle man’ and secondly the opportunity it affords for the informal marketing of business ventures that might find conventional advertising unaffordable.  Farmers’ markets may be indoors or outdoors and typically consist of booths, tables or stands where home-grown produce is made available to consumers.