Local farmers urged to tap into contracts to supply hotel chains

…as Agriculture, Tourism Ministries sign MoU

Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha and Tourism, Industry and Commerce Minister Oneidge Walrond on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will see the collaboration of the two sectors in implementing the development of the Agri-Tourism Policy in Guyana.
During the simple ceremony to sign the document, Mustapha spoke of his satisfaction that the idea was becoming a reality in the space of just one year.
The MoU, he said, stemmed from a recommendation that was made during last year’s Agri-Tourism Week. “It establishes a shared ambition between our two ministries to collaborate, coordinate and implement the development of the Agri-Tourism Policy and roadmap, thereby creating an enabling environment for our agri-tourism operators,” Mustapha said, adding that agri-tourism would act as a diversification mechanism that would generate income for farmers. This is expected to be achieved through on-farm activities that will help to maintain the viability of farms and rural communities.

“Guyana has long had one of the largest agricultural economies and a very high potential of becoming the breadbasket of the Caribbean. In 2020, the agriculture sector accounted for 27.1% of Guyana’s non-oil GDP {Gross Domestic Product] despite the significant impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of farmers, fishers, vendors of agriculture inputs, and food traders. Agri-tourism, therefore, offers farmers the possibility of diversifying and generating additional income from on-farm tourism activities in order to help supplement their agricultural income and maintain the viability of farms and rural communities,” the Minister stated.
He noted that “in Guyana, we are looking for our farmers to get those contracts to supply the hotel chains in our country”.
Tourism, Industry and Commerce Minister Walrond, in her remarks, highlighted that Guyana would be able to rely on the two sectors once they were managed properly, even after the country’s ‘oil streak’ has ended.
“The agriculture and tourism sectors are of strategic importance to Guyana’s development. Managed sustainably, both our agriculture and tourism products can be with us long after the last barrel of oil has been extracted,” she noted.
She went on to say that “globally, both of these industries are multibillion-dollar industries and our objective as Government is to sustainably grow our local enterprises along with our partners in both sectors to be nationally, regionally, and globally competitive.”
Walrond further explained that agri-tourism was aimed principally at increasing farm incomes since it leveraged the attractions of the primary enterprise that was the farm or agri-business to develop a complementary income stream for the agri-business owner.
She declared that it was our duty to work with agri-business owners to help them develop the additional and very different skills and capabilities that would allow them to offer tourism products alongside their primary activities.
“The skillset that is necessary to successfully run the core business of producing agricultural goods is vastly different from the skillset that is necessary to operate successfully in the service industry, where delivery of that service requires a very high degree of interpersonal interaction,” Minister Walrond stated.
Additionally, she pointed out that the quality of facilities appropriate for offering services to the public would be in many cases different from those ordinarily available on a farm as an exclusive agricultural enterprise.
“Agri-tourism in its formal sense presents opportunities for farmers to diversify their revenue streams by offering appropriate farm-based tourism products… as we expand the tourism sector, we’re also creating opportunities for our farmers and local manufacturers,” the Tourism Minister reiterated.

Continuous support
Meanwhile, Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) Country Representative Wilmot Garnett spoke of the continuous support Guyana could expect from the organisation in strengthening the agri-tourism sector.
“IICA has been continuously supportive of any initiative that serves to strengthen the relationship between agricultural sector and the tourism sector, thus advancing a common agenda, that enables progress towards achieving the multiple agri-tourism objectives of our country,” Garnett said.
Also, Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG) Executive Director Trina Butts, in her remarks, pointed out the opportunities this initiative brought to re-evaluate the importance of the two sectors in regard to the environment and local communities.
She said, “This moment, this MoU herein, presents an opportunity to rethink, reinvent, and recover plans to make these sectors more sustainable and resilient for both the environment and local communities.”