Making the agro processing sector more efficient

In recent weeks, the Stabroek Business has published several stories which, in one way or another, focus on what we believe to have been the accomplishments of the agro-processing sector in 2019. Our editorials have also addressed this issue. Those accomplishments were reflected in the range of new products that found themselves on the market, a circumstance that bespoke, more than anything else, the initiative, ingenuity and creativity of the (mostly women) agro processors. In a sense, the growth of the agro processing sector has been one of the more noteworthy poverty-alleviation pursuits undertaken by individuals and families over the years.

 We noted too the fact that there has occurred, over time, a dramatic improvement in the quality of packaging and labelling in the sector, the agro processors having come to realize that the inherent quality of their product (s) notwithstanding, where product quality is not matched by appealing packaging and labeling, sales are likely to suffer. Local agro processors are to be commended for recognizing and responding to that reality. Here, one might add, that the global microscope under which Guyana is now being placed by the international community on account of what one might call oil and gas considerations, places the burden of responsibility on every exporter to present the country to the rest of the world in the best possible light.

Beyond those considerations agro processors have benefitted from various types of training courtesy of Partners of the Americas, the Guyana Marketing Corporation and the Small Business Bureau, among others and from exposure afforded by the GMC’s Farmers’ Markets.

For those under-resourced agro processors support has also been forthcoming in the form of access to production facilities from the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA) and shelf space at the GMC’s Guyana Shop. Both entities, we are told, have been instrumental in supporting the efforts of the Stabroek Business’ 2019 Agro Processor of the Year, Ms. Kelshine Griffith to produce the sweet potato flour used in the manufacture of her Sweet Potato Cake Mix. Other agro processors have also benefitted from similar services.

More, of course, can be done for the sector. For example, the desire of many of the agro processors whom this newspaper has engaged to open their own modest production facilities is deserving of far more generous financing for the acquisition of equipment and the construction of modest but suitable buildings. One might add at this juncture that the continued growth of the agro processing sector could be seriously retarded unless the key lending institutions adjust what would appear to be a posture resembling indifference to the sector.

There is also need for a studied initiative to ensure that the range of packaging material – including bottles and other types of materiel – are readily available and here it will clearly be necessary for government to provide various forms of support in enabling access to imported packaging material. The challenge here has to do with the various types of bottles and other containers required and the problems associated with accessing these in volumes that are affordable for the agro processors. As has already been mentioned, what, at this stage, is clearly apparent is that unless more can be done with packaging and on the whole with product presentation, the stringent consumer demands, both at home and abroad, associated with product presentation could seriously compromise the immediate term future of the sector.

Outside of the limited efforts of the GMC there has not materialized any really sustained effort to bring our agro produce to the attention of the international market. Local representation at overseas fairs and exhibitions are not, as far as we are aware, yielding outcomes commensurate with the costs associated with participation. Last year, we became aware of two instances in which local products attracted external distributor interest. We understand that a third may be on the horizon. Frankly, these ‘returns’   do not match the effort that we put into agro processing which is why we continue to monitor the arrangements for the staging of the second GUYTIE event later this year. 

What is obvious is that there is still a great deal that can be done at the levels of both the government and the private sector to take the agro processing sector forward. We believe that the external marketing of local agro produce can be enhanced through the leveraging of the oil and gas-related attention that Guyana now attracts. The local Business Support Organizations can do their bit in the process of their local content pursuits. There is, at least as far as we are aware, no good reason why the aggressive promotion of our high-quality agro produce in the food outlets in those countries where Guyana has diplomatic representation cannot become part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ ‘economic diplomacy’ pursuits.

At home, and setting aside the still limited level of enthusiasm in some high profile local food outlets for the stocking of local agro produce, there are other challenges. One of these is what, sometimes, appears to be a disconnect between the providers of raw material (the farmers) and the agro processors. One of the challenges associated with agro processing has to do with the production pressures involved in maintaining supplies on the market, the reality being that product supplies often become hostage to the vagaries of ‘season.’ This applies to many of the fruits and vegetables most used in the agro processing sector. Setting aside the fact that it might be possible to narrow this frustrating gap through institutionalized dialogue between farmers and agro processors, our manufacturing sector has to begin to move to the stage where it can have puree production capabilities and other means of storing fruit in order to ensure constancy of supply.

We believe that on the whole the way forward for the agro processing sector reposes on a holistic approach that allows for all of the various strands to which we have alluded to be pulled together under one public/private sector umbrella that is sufficiently broad in its institutional representation to address any or all of the issues to which we have alluded in this editorial. While we are mindful of what, frequently, is the counterproductive bureaucratic clutter that frequently results from multi-agency collaboration we believe that efficient multi-agency collaboration can abolish what, almost always, is the thoroughly time-consuming and counterproductive option of having to trek from agency to agency to have to settle what, in effect, is really a single inter-linked procedure.