WAD-Net says indigenous women face the most challenges to growing in agro-processing sector
The Women's Agro-Processors Development Network says their members face unique challenges in expanding their businesses and are calling for expedited business licenses and their own agro-processing facility.
The Women's Agro-Processors Development Network (WAD-Net) is a network of about 12 small-scale agro-processing groups across Regions One, Two, Four, Five and Nine.
Members are indigenous women led businesses who are supported by a revolving fund, pop-ups and exhibitions to promote their products. The Guyana Marketing Corporation also buy’s their products to sell in the Guyana Shop in Georgetown.
President of WAD-Net Rosamund Benn highlights some challenges that keep these women from growing and expanding their businesses as the Network just manages to support them in keeping their ventures running.
“When we have these exhibitions and so forth, look at the costs for those booths! If we don’t get subsidy, many times we would not be able to partake because sometimes you don’t even sell to cover that expense.”
Benn emphasised “women want to be entrepreneurs”, and society must change to accommodate this shift. But challenges women in many indigenous communities still face is that women often don’t own farmlands.
Benn says in many villages, it is still a cultural norm that men own the lands, and because women are not given rights to their own farmlands, they cannot register their businesses to get licensed and therefore cannot expand their trade.
Another challenge agro-processors face is that even when they do register their businesses, products must be licensed on an annual basis but often the renewal of licenses can take so long, that by the time licenses are renewed its November or December and women have to re-apply for the new cycle.
She says programmes by the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security such as Accelerate-Her have benefitted indigenous women in the past, but Benn hopes initiatives like these can be taken into more villages as access to stable internet make these programmes inaccessible to some women.
"If women can own, or if the groups within the areas can have their own agro-processing facility, they will be able to have all the say in it, not only just a small portion. That can help them to grow and bring in other women within their communities so that they can produce and expand.”
The WAD-Net is continuously seeking new markets for their members, but hope these issues can be addresses soon so women can thrive in their endeavours.
“These things, the running around to get registered and so forth should become much easier for us so that many other women can form themselves into groups and benefit. When there are programmes and so, inform the women, let them know in the communities. Because not everybody has facebook accounts and zoom and so forth because the areas they are in may not have internet access. Those things can be a challenge.”
