– showcased at ‘Agri’ ministry’s inter-agency cookout competition

By Cassandra Khan
THE Ministry of Agriculture on Wednesday held its inter-agency cookout competition and most departments participated, showcasing their creative cooking skills.

Some agencies that took part in the competition were the National Drainage & Irrigation Authority (NDIA), Fisheries Department, Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA), Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) and the Guyana Food and Safety Authority (GFSA).

In first place came the GFSA and the Hydromet Department with 251 points. Third place went to the GSA with 249 points.
The ‘best dessert’ prize was given to the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA) and the GSA. The ‘best beverage’ prize was also given to the GSA.

Speaking to the Guyana Chronicle at the cookout, Stacie McDonald, Assistant Manager of the GSA’s agro-processing facility, said that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has indicated that global food trade has increased and will reach a record in both volume and value.

She said that as a school of agriculture, they have a significant role to play because they produce local flours made from plantains, cassavas, sweet potatoes, bananas, and more.
In their presentation, they showcased some of the secondary products that are produced from locally produced flours.

“We want persons to change their lifestyle and also to adopt these flours that we used, that we produce, and are present on the market,” McDonald said.
She added: “We have a sweet potato pasta… we also have a mutton ham which is something new; we know that ham is produced from pork and chicken, but we have moved a step further and we have done mutton ham, which is really nice for persons who don’t use chicken or pork.”

“We were given a guideline for the cookout and one of the meats that we were required to use was mutton. All of our recipes are secondary-processed products with potential in the baking industry,” McDonald said.
An agrometeorological technician attached to the hydromet service, Lisa-Ann Peters, said that they deal with meteorology directly, which is a collection of weather and climate information along with monitoring water resources.

“We have an agromet section that deals with agriculture and assisting farmers to make better and more well-informed, related decisions… so, we tried to capture that in everything that we did today,” she said.
For their presentation, they made tea using soursop and cherry leaves, as well as rainwater, which they called “weather tea.”

“We have taco bites and the crust for the taco was made using sweet potato flour, and this is produced locally. We also have mutton which is coated with barbecue and soursop sauce. And for dessert, we have a carrot cake and it’s frosted with soursop frosting,” she said.

Peters added: “In the representation, you can see good weather… you have a lot of blue, good weather conditions that you would want for certain activities.”
One hundred per cent vegan pizza, which was the hydromet department’s main course, was on display with crust made from cassava flour.

Seon Richardson, a fisheries officer, said that they were promoting the locally grown aquaculture species.
“Some of the main ones we have are tilapia, shrimp and prawns, which we’re doing a lot of production with,” he explained.