PARTICIPANTS of the Region 10 ‘Queen of gardening’ competition have begun reaping produce from the seedlings and agriculture inputs they received from the administration’s agriculture and market day committees.
Joylyn Thegg on Wednesday told the Guyana Chronicle that while she had encountered some challenges due to torrential rainfall, she was able to see the fruits of her labour.
“I had some challenges with the weather. With the planting, I had to treat it like a child. I had to be covering it up with branches because you know the plants can only take so much of rain,” Thegg said.
She added that she has been able to reap lettuce, pak choy and celery. The woman who is a single parent also disclosed that she is looking forward to reaping some tomatoes in the near future.
“It has been good so far…to God be the glory. All my plants survived. I did some reaping last Saturday,” she said.
Meanwhile, Shemekia Griffith, a livestock farmer, said that she, too, had been able to see fruitful produce.
Griffith intends to utilise the support given through the ongoing competition to expand her small-scale farm.
“Although I do some farming, I am not recognised on the forefront and so I decided to take up the competition.”
Griffith supports herself and family with the little earnings she gets from her farm.
“I did Agriculture Science in school but I had to drop out of school in Form Four but I continued doing agriculture even though I don’t have a certificate or whatever. I continued planting and that is what I do to maintain and sustain my family,” she said.
In a previous interview with this newspaper, the agriculture committee’s chairman, Mark Goring, had explained that the competition is expected to target 40 single mothers, providing them with the technical support needed to become entrepreneurs in the region’s growing agriculture sector.
The project will run for eight weeks; at the end of which the women will be given space at the Linden Market Day event to sell what they had reaped.
The regional agriculture committee organised the monthly farmers’ market in a bid to provide farmers and other stakeholders in the agriculture sector with a safe place to sell their goods.
According to Goring, the gardening initiative builds on the region’s push for agriculture to be its main income-earning activity.
Wismar Market Square is the site for the farmers’ market. The event is expected to attract cash crop and livestock farmers, agro-processors and other entrepreneurs.
