Farmer-to-Farmer Programme continues to provide many benefits to the agri-sector

In October 2019, Dr. Melvin Pascall volunteered for two weeks with our Farmer-to-Farmer program to support small-scale food processors and exporters in Guyana and train them on food packaging and labeling. With his support, Dr. Pascall helped narrow the gap between the quality of local vs. foreign packaged foods, facilitating the introduction of Guyanese products into international markets.

The Farmer to Farmer (F2F) programme has been helping Guyana agricultural sector by providing technical assistance from U.S. volunteers to local farmers, farm groups, agribusinesses and other agriculture sector institutions.

The goal of the programme is to promote sustainable improvements in food security, agricultural processing, production and marketing.

Country Director Kelvin Craig says the next upcoming assignment will build capacity in the Prison Service agricultural programme.

“With us we’ve had several volunteers including veteran volunteer Dr James Garner who has made who has made more than 30 visits to Guyana since the 1990s. He is here in Guyana and he will be doings some work with the Guyana Prison Service. They are expanded their agricultural programme and we have been contributing to that. We are happy with all of the response from the Prison service.”

Robert Maher, Senior Program Officer of the Programme was impressed with Guyana’s successes, particularly in enhancing capacity of the Guyana Livestock Development Authority and National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) to better support local farmers.

“We’ve been happy to work with organisations of all different kinds, agro-businesses, farmers, processors… all types of actors throughout the agriculture value chain and agriculture sector. We couldn’t be happier with all that we’ve accomplished and we can’t wait to see what we can do in the next year.”

This project is funded by the United States Agency International Development (USAID) and there are two program areas – a Livestock Production and Marketing (LPM and a Horticultural Production and Marketing (HPM).

Senior Field Officer of the F2F programme in Guyana Jermaine Joseph says that Guyana is on track to meet and exceed this year’s targets yet again.

“For the first year, our target was 30 assignments; we were able to surpass that. So far, for the fiscal year 2022, we have a target of about 50 assignments and we would have already completed 38.”

Part of Wednesdays’ consultations involved strengthening the digital database management capacities of NAREI.