RECENTLY, I spoke about volunteering at ‘Redeeming Soles’, a not-for-profit organisation that distributes clean footwear to people who need them.

That experience necessitated my understanding that volunteering isn’t simply about helping another in some way, it’s also about showing compassion and respect to the people you are seeking to help.

My second experience was at the ACRS Food Bank, in Chinatown. Asian and Pacific Islanders (among others, of course) residing in the area regularly benefit from the distribution of food products from here.

I was among a batch of five youth ambassadors and two adult facilitators who spent a few hours at the food bank, pitching in however we could. Maybe I thought it would be a boring, taxing exercise but in retrospect, it was perhaps one of the better informal learning experiences of my entire trip.

Synergy was the first takeaway from this exercise. Vehicles came from local farms with produce to supply the bank. Fresh produce. Entirely free of cost. All to distribute to the community.

Given our touted agricultural prowess, creating a network like this in Guyana is undoubtedly plausible. We have been dependent upon agriculture since practically the creation of this nation and more than 400 years later, agriculture still accounts for about 15 percent of our gross domestic product (GO-Invest 2017).
Though I will concede that there are ramifications to consider before initiating such a network, I don’t see why it isn’t a reality.

English economist of the 18th century, Thomas Malthus had forecast that one day the world population would not be sustained adequately since population growth would overtake the global ability to feed the population. Malthus linked this phenomenon of food security (or lack thereof) to poverty, something quite present in Guyana.
The principle of synergy between the food bank and the Seattle farmers is what really grasped my attention though.

The Regional Democratic Council (RDC) for Region Four recently hosted a Regional, Agricultural and Commercial Exhibition (RACE) aiming to promote the region’s producers and create markets for them.

President David Granger addressed the opening of this exhibition and I listened to him urge the region to ‘lead the way’ in developing the sustainable industry. I’ve been in the media for just over a year and I’ve kept abreast with the news for as long as I can remember, so I have heard these charismatic sentiments purported over and over.

But what I had possibly never heard (or maybe I just missed it before) was his call for the end of regional parochialism within the industry.

He was cognisant of the abundance of resources on the coast versus the lack of the same in the hinterland regions. And no matter what level of development takes place in Guyana, I will always remember him bemoaning that the five largest administrative regions in Guyana happen to also be the five poorest. Trust me, that realisation hit me hard.

What he called for was for his synergy on a national level- between regions- sharing resources to bridge disparities and augment production. Development is not insular; it is multidimensional. Development at this national level needs all hands on deck.

I’ve been a huge fan of all of the Ministry of Public Telecommunications (MoPT)’s tech events and one stellar initiative was having youth develop a tech platform to provide a nexus between traditional agricultural marketing and modern solutions. Through the inaugural CODESPRINT, an online platform was created to connect agro-producers to buyers. Coincidentally, this platform was initiated at the very same RACE.

The young creators of the app, members from Team Innosys, spent some of their time at the exhibition chatting with the farmers who were more than eager to work along with the ministry to boost their markets through the online platform.

While this isn’t the same synergy I saw in Seattle, cross-sector synergy was birthed right here. And really, this synergy was not only extended to the agricultural field, but the Telecommunications Ministry has been extending its reach to the health and education sectors as well.

I tend to overuse the phrase ‘domino effect’ because I believe in Douglas Adams’s “fundamental interconnectedness of all things”. But I’ve seen synergy in my country and I’ve seen it work. Though this ‘e-agriculture’ isn’t going to solve all of Guyana’s outdated and mundane agricultural practices, it’s an indication that better will come.