Agro-processors urged to up standards

As the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) through its Guyana Shop outlet celebrated its 7th anniversary on Friday at their Robb Street location, agro-processors were encouraged to strive to develop products of higher standards.
To commemorate the milestone, Agriculture Minister, Noel Holder said that the Guyana Shop’s focus is to promote and market agro-processed products. The Guyana Shop’s vision is aligned with the Government for food processing and value addition to be drivers for diversification and commercialisation of agriculture, employment generation and increased export possibilities.
He noted that key elements of the Ministry’s strategy are to ensure food security, stimulate village economies, empower small-scale producers and sustaining livelihood. With Guyana earning some US$8 million in exports from its fruits and vegetables for 2018, Holder said that the country has the potential to bring in much more revenues.
He explained that a key policy of the Ministry is market led-production with emphasis on import reduction and export promotion of agricultural commodities.
Moreover, he noted that there has been an extensive array of new and innovative value-added products.
“From 2013 to now, we have seen 344 new products in the Guyana Shop, a few notable examples are Sun Crest Honey, Green Diamond, 592 Wines, GT Wines and Leisa’s Products. Additionally, seven years ago when the Shop reopened, the products that were shelved were sourced from Regions One, Two, Three, Four and Nine. Over the years, this has been expanded to include regions Five, Six and 10.”
According to the Minister, the Guyana Shop is the largest selling agent of local agro-processed products in Guyana. Minister Holder spoke of the new and innovative value-added products developed over the years, many of which are on the shelves in the Guyana Shop today.
“These products include wines such as passion fruit wine, peanut and bark wine, peanut wine, boulanger wine among others, flours such as breadfruit and banana flours. There have also been soaps such as coconut oil, moringa soaps and lemon soaps,” Minister Holder explained.
General Manager of the Guyana Shop, Ida Sealey-Adam assured that the Guyana Marketing Corporation will continue to foster collaborations between agro-processors and the Ministry.
She added that the Guyana Shop has hosted several events to market local products over the past years. Some of these events were the Farine Fiesta, a collaboration with Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), and the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs.
The Guyana Marketing Corporation will be hosting a Market Day on October 26, 2019, at D’ Urban Park, Georgetown.