Corentyne farmers receive Post-Harvest Management training
30th, June 2021–The Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) has embarked on a series of training sessions designed to address post-harvest losses in farming communities across the country.
Over the past few months, officers from GMC travelled to several areas in regions 2,3,5,6 and 10 to provide a direct response to concerns surrounding post-harvest losses in watermelon, peppers, pumpkins, and pineapples, among other fruits and vegetables. The sessions offered an in-depth understanding of the importance of producing and selling quality produce on the local market; with specific focus on harvesting, sorting ,preparing, transporting and storing produce for the export market.
Farmers from areas such as Orealla, and Leguan, that were not previously covered also benefited from these much-anticipated sessions.
The latest group of farmers to benefit from GMC’s Post-Harvest Management training are from the Corentyne, in Region six.
On Friday, June 25th, a team from GMC travelled to Eversham Village, Corentyne Berbice, and engaged over twenty-five 25 farmers who were afforded training in areas relating to the improvement of post-harvest management practices in watermelon.
The session was held at the Eversham Health Centre.
During the exercise delivery, particular emphasis was placed on measuring the quantitative and qualitative loss in watermelon. The session was conducted by Varush Persaud, Agri-Business Development Assistant, and Brijesh Singh, Extension Manager.
During the session, Mr Persaud went into great details on the harvesting, transporting, sorting, packaging and marketing of watermelons. He zeroed in on the procedure farmers should follow for produce to be ready for the export markets.
Further, the team took the opportunity to advocates for the use of agriculture field crates which, they advise, would significantly reduce the quantitative losses during the post-harvest exercise
Mr Singh, Extension Manager, underscored the importance of producing and selling high quality fresh fruits and vegetables.
“Fresh fruits and fresh vegetables are vital to the Guyana economy, diet and export because they supply income for growers and nutrition for people,” he noted.
He added that “they (quality fruits and vegetables) are also an important source of raw materials for the developing processing industries.”
He reiterated that farmers pay close attention to their post-harvest practices and follow the steps outlined in the presentation.
The GMC will be travelling to other areas over the next few months to deliver the training to other farmers in Guyana.
