LOCAL farmers interested in honey and pineapple production and processing will soon have the opportunity to learn from educational videos, which will display best practices in these two agricultural enterprises.

These videos are being prepared by the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture (IICA) in collaboration with Partners of the Americas (POA Guyana).
Disclosing this last week, IICA representative in Guyana, Mr. Wilmot Garnett said that his organisation and Partners of the Americas were collaborating on the production of the two videos as a creative means of reaching farmers with updated knowledge of agricultural practices so they can be more productive and efficient and increase the profitability of their farming activities.
“Many times agricultural extension officers produce books and manuals and the farmers don’t really have time to look at them. The intention of these videos is to help farmers learn by watching other farmers. The videos make the learning process somewhat more attractive; make the transfer of ideas more effective,” he said.
The videographers are overseas-based volunteers of Partners of the Americas.
The teams comprise Mr. Jonathan Machado, Ms. Natalie Edgar and Mr. Bruno Koplin, all expert video producers and POA volunteers and Mr. Jermaine Joseph and Mr. Arnold De Mendonca, local IICA staffers.
Mr. De Mendonca said shooting of the bee-keeping video started earlier this month and was done at apiaries at Fort Wellington, West Coast Berbice, Mainstay, Essequibo, Georgetown and on the East Bank Demerara.
President of the Guyana Apiculture Society, Mr. Linden Stewart is the main resource person.
There have also been inputs from Kingdom Apiary and from Mr. Ravo Rajkumar, bee keeper of Mon Choisi Village, West Coast Berbice.
The video will depict aspects of bee keeping, including its advantages, techniques such as starting a hive, safety gear, equipment, hive management, handling of bees, harvesting, processing and marketing.
The bee keeping video will have information of interest to both newcomers and veterans and should be ready for dissemination by July, he said.
Mr. Jermaine Joseph said that videographers have successfully completed the collection of organic pineapple production and processing video footage in the Mainstay village.
Joseph said video footage and still pictures were taken from locations including pineapple farms, the market and the pineapple factory, capturing routine activities.
Six farmers were interviewed with the associated still imagery and video footage focusing on the following topics: what is organic farming; advantages and disadvantages of organic farming; locating the organic farm; land preparation and planting; pest management and maintaining soil fertility and processing of pineapples.
The first draft of the pineapple production video is expected to be completed before month-end.
Both videos will be uploaded to the internet via YouTube (a video sharing website) and will also be distributed manually through the Ministry of Agriculture, the IICA officials said.