Farmers learn business skills

It
takes some people a lifetime to realise it, but in many cases, being successful
in business has little to do with working hard or making a quality product.
As News 5’s Jacqueline Woods found out this morning at the conclusion
of a unique development project, marketing is what makes the business
world go around.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The five year project on Trade Promotion and Business Development, focussed
on marketing to assist small farmers who have been struggling with the
sale of their products. But before they could make their products more
saleable, they had to first undergo a shift in how they look at themselves.

Reynaldo Guerrero, Project Manager
“To change the producers view from being just a farmer to being a business
person within the agricultural sector. That in itself was a major challenge
because of the traditional way of doing things. And we brought to it that
business perspective that was important to keep changing the focus.”
The participants are organic farmers, producers of honey, snack foods,
peppers among others. The beekeepers, who attended the sessions were taught
how they can convert a bottle of honey into other value-added products.

Reynaldo Guerrero
“It’s transforming them from a farmer into the possible entrepreneur,
that we saw this project as having a major impact.”

Jacqueline Woods
“What’s happening globally as to why they need to diversify?”

Reynaldo Guerrero
“The whole aspect of globalisation is creating challenges for people
to find niche markets for their products. Where the bigger supplies are
garnering a bigger share of the market for the bulk commodity. As a result,
there is a greater emphasis on value adding or processing in order that
you can convert your product to attract smaller markets.”

As a result of the training sessions, several booklets on pepper and
honey production were published. The manual, Industrialisation of Honey
Products, written by Laura Guerra, is specifically designed for small
beekeepers to help them make a profit.

Laura Guerra, Honey consultant
“Our beekeepers have been storing honey from one year to the next because
of the saturation of the local market. So they got to store it until ending
of the year, when there’s a bit of scarcity, then they would put out their
honey. However, this does have a cost to storing it, because you have
your equipment with honey and you have a lot of lost of income there.
So with this, what we are trying to do is to prevent that, prevent a beekeeper
from storing his or her honey from one year to the next, by adding value
to it, by making products out of it. It will increase their income and
prevent and sort of help the saturation of the market.”

Honey products were not the only samples on display. Participants from
several communities also exhibited their own bottles of creative preserves
based on the skills they acquired during the sessions. Reporting for News
5, Jacqueline Woods.

Over the five year period, over two hundred people participated in
the project.