CHILE’S Ambassador to Guyana, Claudio Rojas Rachel, believes that Guyana can do much more to reap revenues and boost its economy should Guyana take up its place as the “powerhouse” in the regional food and agriculture sector.
He said Guyana has all the elements to become a powerhouse for food security within the Caribbean and the rest of the world. Ambassador Rachel was at the time addressing the closing session of the CODEX Coordinating Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean (CCLAC) workshop held at Cara Lodge, on Friday.
“We are of the view that Guyana has all the elements to become the powerhouse for its self-sustenance and to sustain other countries with all the agricultural needs with its vast lands, excellent quality of soil and water resources.”
The ambassador, who has been living in Guyana for almost two years, said he would make regular trips to the local market where he is able to get fresh fruits and vegetables.
“But when I go to the supermarket, the problem comes. There we are exposed as consumers to goods that are imported from other markets with labelling in different languages and components of information.” He said Guyana can do much better in this regard, noting that his country would like to see a space for cooperation in the area of agriculture and food safety, labelling of foods and security.
The ambassador noted that while Guyana is blessed with the food and space, it may have some challenges with innovation and engineering. “In that process , we are of the view that there is ample opportunity for my country to assist Guyana to expand its production capacity”, he said.
“There is no doubt that now to all trades have to be standardised to fulfil international standards…. There is no doubt that a bigger population sees an opportunity for Guyana to set itself into playing a key role in food security within the Region,” the Chilean diplomat continued.
Meanwhile, Chair of the National Standards Council, Allison Butters-Grant, said that Guyanese must come together to make use of the available resources because the world is “begging for our food.”
She said Guyana should seek to have an area where value-added products are made available and where products are tested to know the nutritional value. She said foreign nationals are coming into the country taking Guyanese local products and using them for their own businesses.
“We cannot let people take our products out of our country and then sell it back to us. We have to think along the lines of economic value as we think about food security,” Butters- Grant said.
The official said more needs to be done particularly for small farmers who collectively form a major network for large markets. She shared an incident where a farmer recently had to sell his eddoes for Guy $10 per pound, because he could not get them to the local market on time.
“If he had a network that he was within that could say to him, dry your eddoes make them into powder, how we can get the technical assistance from any part of the diaspora. Our farmers have to understand that that is manufacturing practices.”
Coming from the business sector, Butters-Grant said she has been meeting with a number of persons who are interested in exporting their produce. The challenges she said include getting the produce from “point A to point B” and persons not knowing what are the best value packaging practices for individual products.
She said as Guyana talks about food security, it must also educate. “We must talk to the man in the market; we have to continue promoting our services,” she urged.
