Family farmers' organizations in Guyana strengthened their associative and entrepreneurial capacities during the FO4ACP Learning Route.

Continuing the path towards strengthening smallholder organizations in Guyana, FAO, together with Procasur, developed the Learning Route "Moving up the value chain! Moving the entrepreneurial and associative capacities of small rural producers' organizations", through which participants exchanged knowledge and developed skills to identify and address improvement opportunities to improve the performance of their organizations.

This Learning Route included two case studies, which allowed eleven participants from the following farmers' organizations: Gibraltar/Fyrish Farmers Association, Berbice Sheep and Goat Farmers Association, Mocha Arcadia Multipurpose Agricultural Cooperative, Pomeroon Export Producers Association, Pomeroon Bee Keepers Association, Women Agro-processors Development Network, to visit and learn first-hand about successful financial and administrative management practices that could be extrapolated to their organizations.

The first visit was to the family organization "Pomeroon Rose,” which shared with the participants the actions that have enabled it to position itself as the leading producer of extra virgin coconut oil in its territory. Among them, he highlighted the consistency in product quality as a decisive factor for the product’s sale, record keeping as a fundamental part of management, timely delivery to retailers as an essential part of the business, and the need to prioritize customer service. 

Its leader, Mrs. Rosamund Benn, commented that this small business had become a sustainable way to generate economic opportunities for herself and her community, allowing her to move from "working to survive to work to live.”

The learning journey continued with a visit to the Central Mahaicony Perth Village Farmers Association (CMPVFA) on the East Coast of Demerara. The organization, which currently has 25 members engaged in various agricultural and livestock activities, is characterized by strong female leadership and a strong sense of belonging among its members. 

Thanks to these qualities, the CMPVFA has established several partnerships with public and international institutions that have contributed to its social and economic development. During this field visit, participants learned about CMPVFA's achievements, challenges, and best practices that have been adopted since its formation in 2004.

María Ignacia Hadad, a specialist in family farming at FAO, considers that this learning path "represents an invaluable opportunity for its participants, in that it provides them with practical and strategic first-hand knowledge from the main experts in facing the challenges of their contexts: their peers and themselves.”

 For her part, María José Araya of the PROCASUR organization, concerning the experience lived by the farmers' organizations in Guyana, emphasizes that "the development of this Learning Route has enabled participants not only to analyze their organizational contexts and identify critical points for improving their businesses but also to begin to propose specific actions to improve their participation in the respective value chains."

"The exchange also represents progress in terms of empowerment and the generation of national networks and alliances that will enable future collective actions to be detonated at the policy dialogue level," Araya stressed.

After the exchange of experiences with the organizations visited, the participants will develop an Innovation Plan to adopt and adapt the good practices and knowledge acquired during the learning path, transforming them into practical and concrete actions that will enable them to improve their respective organizations' associative and entrepreneurial capacities.

With these initiatives, the FO4ACP program seeks to strengthen small producers' organizations through dialogue and the creation of networks that enable them to become agents of change in their empowerment and positioning. In this way, it supports these organizations' economic and institutional development and represents their identity and interests vis-à-vis the economic, social, and political actors of agrifood systems.

"Through the innovation plans, the participating organizations will generate the initial impulse to advance towards improving their position in the value chain and develop governance mechanisms that will enable them to promote actions in the economic, social, and political spheres," said María Hadad, FAO specialist.

About the FO4ACP Program

This initiative is part of the Farmers' Organizations for Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific (FO4ACP) program, financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the European Union in support of the Organization of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS).  It aims to increase incomes and improve the livelihoods, food, nutrition security, and safety of organized smallholder and family farmers in African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries by strengthening regional, national, and local farmers' organizations.