The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, is hosting a four day workshop to build capacity of persons working at the processing level of consumable agriculture. The workshop will focus on value chain analysis and developing agricultural exports.
Kelvin Craig, National Consultant, Food and Agriculture Organisation
National FAO consultant, Kelvin Craig, told the Government Information Agency (GINA), that attention would be paid to the process that agricultural produce goes through to meet the consumer.
“The value chain approach is a tool that we use to analyse what is happening with commodities, it could be crops or livestock. In this particular case we are focusing on crops, what is happening to those commodities from the time it leaves the farm to the time it gets to the consumer,” Craig said.
A value chain is a set of linked activities that work to add value to a product. It consists of actors and actions that improve a product while linking commodity producers to processors and markets. This allows for quality pricing and the export of quality agricultural products.
Craig explained that while traditional channels are mostly used for trade in commodities, other channels are evolving. He said the quality of consumable agriculture goods along with pricing are key elements to developing agriculture for export.
Some of the staff being facilitated at the workshop
The consultant added that, “In the past most of us may be 90 per cent of the population or more (are) used to getting fruits and vegetables from the municipal markets that is still very much so but at the same time we have a number of supermarkets and a number of the younger people both men and women (who) prefer not to go to the municipal market.”
Participants will be trained to calculate production and marketing costs, assessing markets and conducting a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis for products.
The capacity building workshop is being facilitated by consultants of the FAO. It is being held at Regency Suites, Hadfield Street, Georgetown from April 3 to 6 2017.
Staff of the New Guyana Market Corporation and representatives from other agro-processing firms and agencies are attending the workshop.
