-Award –winning group seeks financial aid to remain in business

At the end of March 2017, the Aranaputa Processors Friendly Society in the North Rupununi

had approximately $243,000 on hand. Its expenditure outweighed its earnings for that month, a trend which the group of women who manage the project says has been ongoing for several years.

While there is a ready supply of peanuts on hand, lack of markets coupled with a reduction in demand from the group’s major supporter, the Ministry of Education, has seen the agro-processing group grapple to remain afloat.

According to Sonia Sears, head of the group, the agro-processing facility is in “survival mode”. She told the Guyana Chronicle during a visit to the Aranaputa Valley facility recently that the body’s survival is being affected mainly by a change in policy of the regional educational authorities.

At the end of March this year, the facility had approximately 292 pounds of packaged peanut butter on hand. In addition, the group had a total 4,417 pounds of peanuts in its storage rooms. Sears said the situation has led to two persons earning monthly from the project on a rotational basis, producing peanut butter only on order. In the past, the product was being produced on a larger scale, she said, noting that as much as 100,000 pounds of peanut butter was being processed per week and sold to merchants.

These days, that figure has dropped to almost 20,000 pounds, a figure which sees the group almost exhausting all its probable means to remain in business.

In March 2010, residents participated in the formal opening of the modern peanut processing factory in the village.

The project was successfully completed by the Government of Canada in collaboration with the Government of Guyana, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) at the time.

Its chairman, Kenneth Forde, told the Guyana Chronicle at the time that the cultivation of peanuts was the main source of income in the village and that the electrically-driven factory served as a major asset for the economic development of the community.

The plant, capable of producing 100 pounds of peanut butter per day, has been managed by members of a Council under the umbrella of the Aranaputa Processors Friendly Society Peanut Butter Factory.
Since its establishment, the school-feeding programme in the Region was the main market for the peanut butter, and the Village Council had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Education with respect to the quantities required and the price at the time.

But times have changed. The Ministry of Education no longer purchases the quota it usually procured and instead, Sears noted that schools utilise the imported Peter Pan and other foreign-made peanut butter. She said that the facility also provides packaged cassava bread to the schools in the area but the quantities requested by the Ministry of Education has also dropped significantly.

Since September 2016, the ministry has been indebted to the factory. In its financial report of March 2017, the factory noted that the Education Ministry owed the entity $983,200. This sum is likely to climb this month since the ministry has not honoured its debt.

According to Sears, the group is seeking the intervention of the government or any organisation which can provide a grant in order for the agro-processing group to remain in business. She said that the group once approached the Small Business Bureau (SBB) seeking financial aid, however she noted that the requirements set-out were “too much”.

Residents of the village told the Guyana Chronicle that the factory was the main image of Aranaputa . They noted that most farmers in the area sold their peanuts to the factory and as such its closure would spell bad news for the farmers.