The argument that it might have taken more years than we had hoped does not gainsay the fact that a considerable amount of light has begun to find its way into the room as far as the development of Guyana’s agro-processing industry is concerned. No less remarkable than the fact that agro processing is beginning to turn the proverbial corner is the realization that the transformation has been spearheaded largely by women who have had to invest mostly their own resources and their own time, energy and resilience in an initiative which, up until now, is still to bring them the commensurate material returns.
We would have to go back perhaps three decades to be able to make a meaningful comparison between the jam jars, sub-standard paper labels and primitive processing techniques that had characterized the packaging and labeling to which our agro-produce had been subjected to the contemporary era where the pressure of local as much as global demands have compelled the sector to raise its game, and we have done so with a fair measure of distinction. The graduation in the production process from the manual mincing mills and graters to low-technology machinery has been one of the more significant steps forward. It has not, however, been the only one.
