THE local office of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) said it is proud of its performance and its accomplishments in Guyana last year.IICA Director Wilmot Garnett said its resilience, inclusion and family agriculture flagship projects provided another year of successful contribution to the agricultural sector and the development of small and medium-size entrepreneurs, including women and youths locally.

He said the European Union-funded projects, the Agricultural Policy Project (APP) and the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) projects had all contributed to another successful year of IICA’s contribution to the sector.

Some major IICA Guyana contributions, among many others too numerous to mention, include the following:
Developing production protocols and coordination mechanisms for legumes and cassava production; developing and establishing instruments to build capacity in farmer organizations; strengthening the statistical capacity of the Resource Development and Planning Division of the Ministry of Agriculture; and developing and managing value chain platforms for both small ruminants and cassava.

The IICA Guyana office flagship projects contributed to rural development in the Tri-Lake Community of Tapakuma, in Region 2 (Pomeroon/Supenaam) among other places. A major achievement was the re-commissioning of a cassava processing facility in this community — the Rising Sun Agro-Processing Facility at St. Denny’s Village.
Rural communities in the area planting cassava are being supported by this processing facility through the processing of the cassava into a variety of cassava products.

The Tapakuma Cassava Processing Factory now serves as a community-based income generating model for other small value-added operations in Guyana.

The local office also continued its support to local beekeepers by engaging an expert who provided training on apiculture using a new and proven method of beekeeping called the Perone Hive, which aimed at boosting their productivity and the profitability of their businesses.

Among other accomplishments, IICA Guyana also continued to promote protected agriculture technology (shade houses) through collaboration with several partners, including St. Stanislaus College Farm, Partners of the Americas, Caribbean and African Self Reliance International (CASRI), National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI), United Nations agencies, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Education, and the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI).

With over one hundred established protected agriculture structures throughout the ten administrative regions in Guyana, IICA has collaborated with CARDI to research and evaluate crop production, utilizing an improved high tunnel structure while performing cost/benefit analyses for selected crops. It is envisaged that at least 200 farmers/investors will be trained in improved protective agriculture best practices.

IICA continued to support bio-gas technology as an energy alternative to fossil fuels. The Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA) has also benefited from this technology.

A unit was installed at the GSA and that agro-processing facility is presently using the methane gas as the main energy source. This intervention significantly reduced the GSA’s energy cost and dependency on the use of propane gas.

Supported by the local office, the Caribbean Network of Rural Women Producers (CANROP) conducted a three-day training workshop for Caribbean women rural producers, in collaboration with The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), to learn how to build and manage a communication platform.

The group consisted of 20 women from several Caribbean countries, including Guyana, St Lucia, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and The Bahamas.

The participants learned how to create and post blogs, feature stories, news articles, and other basic steps that could be used to introduce their businesses and products to the international community via the Internet.

IICA celebrated its 40th anniversary in Guyana last year. On that occasion, Agriculture Minister Noel Holder said: “The support provided over the years by IICA has significantly impacted on Guyana’s agriculture development agenda, and for this the country is grateful.”

Garnett said last week: “The local IICA office will continue to implement measures to ensure an even greater impact on the agriculture sector in Guyana in 2016.”

By Clifford Stanley