THE Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) administration’s agriculture committee, in collaboration with the region’s Market Day Committee, has launched the “Queen of the Gardening” initiative, the agriculture committee’s chairman, Mark Goring confirmed.

In an interview with the Guyana Chronicle on Thursday, Goring said the project will target 40 single mothers to provide them with the technical support needed to become entrepreneurs in the region’s growing sector.
“We are looking to get more women in agriculture; to motivate them [and] get them into agriculture so that they can elevate their income,” Goring said.

The project will run for eight weeks. At the end of it, the women will be given space at Linden’s market day event to sell the produce yielded from their labour.
“It will conclude July month end and, at the conclusion, all the participants will have their products at the farmers’ market day. So, they will sell whatever they have and whatever they planted,” Goring said.

So far, Goring noted, the initiative yielded positive results. If extended funding is made available, he continued, the committee will push for the initiative to be a continuous platform to support the women of that administrative region.

Recently, the regional agriculture committee organised a 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 of the farmers’ market which will be held later this year. The event is expected to attract cash crop and livestock farmers, agro-processors and other entrepreneurs.