We need an urgent briefing on Guyana’s participation in Agro Fest 2024

In a year that is expected to, hopefully, yield a regionwide pronouncement on the status of the anxiously awaited Regional Food Security Terminal, the staging of the Barbados Agro Fest assumes an enhanced significance, not just for the host country but, as well, for the entire region. Indeed, it would be altogether fitting for the update on the status of the Terminal (which the Stabroek Business has been calling for over the past several months) were to be made during the course of the February 23- 25 event. Barbados’ Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, along with Guyana’s President, Irfaan Ali, have been the ‘lead players’ in the regional food security undertaking and it would therefore be altogether fitting for the announcement to be made in Barbados and that it be made whilst there is significant Guyana representation at this year’s Agro Fest.

Were that to be made possible it would represent the realization of a landmark moment for a region that has been, for some time now, somewhat uneasy about its food security status. Beyond that, for a disclosure of that nature to be made in Barbados would be entirely fitting since, not only would it have come amidst one of the country’s most important food-related events, but that it will clear a path that was becoming cluttered by delays in providing an update on the pace of progress towards the realization of the Food Terminal. One expects, of course, that Guyana, which has partnered Barbados in erecting the building blocks for the Terminal and by extension, the fashioning of some important building blocks for the realization of regional food security, will be present, in full force, in Barbados later this month. Here it should be pointed out that this time around, affordability is hardly an issue, a circumstance that allows government to break from the tradition of ‘penny pinching’ in helping local Agro Processors (and creative people as a whole) to benefit from the kind of external market exposure that will do their businesses and the economy of the country, as a whole, a fair measure of good.

Given the aforementioned, and having regard to the fact that Agro Fest 2023 is now about two weeks away, the Stabroek Business feels bound to comment on the fact that – as far as we are aware – there has been no real official ‘hum’ about Agro Fest ’24 and Guyana’s planned participation therein. Indeed, if the accustomed practice were to have been followed there would have been, by now, an audible hum about Guyana’s participation in the event, and more particularly, about the arrangements for the Guyana contingent and their products to get there. Here it should be said that, in terms of affordability, this is probably the appropriate moment for the Government of Guyana to make a meaningful gesture to the country’s Agro Processors who will be participating in the event by gifting much of the cost of participation (air fares and the cost of moving their goods to Barbados would be a fine and fitting gesture) in the event. Here it has to be said that if this is government’s intention, it is certainly ‘cutting it fine’ since leaving aside everything else, there has not been, insofar as this newspaper is aware, any media-driven disclosure up to this time on Guyana’s participation in Agro Fest 2024.

Mind you, we have been hearing ‘grapevine’ comments that have to do with the movement of goods to Barbados but while we are told that – as was the case last year – GO-INVEST will be running the planning and logistics ‘show’ this year, what ought to be a plan that unfolds alongside a structured official information regime has been missing. Here it has to be said again that what can be described as (up until now) an information void on the matter of Guyana’s participation in Agro Fest 2024 amounts to ‘bad form’ on the part of government particularly since it ought to be aware of the accusations of prejudice that have emanated from local Agro Processors regarding the matter of which participants in such events usually benefit from generous official support. Acting on information that GOINVEST will once again, this year, be running the logistics ‘show’ as far as Guyana’s participation in Agro Fest 2024 is concerned, we have sought, on three occasions, to make contact with the relevant functionary. Twice we were told that that functionary was ‘in a meeting’ (a persistent and infuriating official tagline employed by state agencies to communicate the inaccessibility of the relevant official). On the third occasion, the response was that the said official was “out of office”.

The Stabroek Business believes that given the fact that the region is now, seemingly, at a critical juncture of an overwhelmingly important assignment - the creation of an infrastructure upon which to build robust food security bona fides - it is only fitting that Barbados and Guyana, particularly, are well represented at this year’s Agro Processing event. As it happens, while the host, Barbados, has already launched itself into ‘making some noise’ about this year’s Agro Fest, we are not aware that any of the agencies customarily connected (GO-INVEST, GMC, The Ministry of Agriculture) had up to earlier this week, made any substantive announcement regarding Guyana’s participation in Agro Fest 2024. Meanwhile, we have learnt from a source that arrangements are already underway to airlift participants’ agro produce from Georgetown to Bridgetown and that would-be participants in the event have moved to the stage of seeking to finance their air fares and accommodation. The Stabroek Business is aware of the fact that accusations of favouritism (in the selection of participants to benefit from state support for participation in Agro Fest) have arisen on previous occasions when local Agro Processing contingents have participated in the Agro Fest event.

Every Guyanese Agro Processor deemed (by consumers) to have a marketable product is deserving of opportunity for both local and external exposure. Here, one might add that Guyana is now better off, materially, than we had been in previous years, to give generous support to Agro Processors seeking to grow their respective markets in Barbados and beyond. With close to two weeks remaining before the staging of the event, the Stabroek Business is calling on the relevant agency to make an immediate public disclosure on all of the various aspects of Guyana’s participation in Agro Fest 2024, including the procedures associated with participation therein and the particular protocols associated with benefitting from various forms of state support in this regard.