Beekeeper among youth entrepreneurs receiving cash grants

Jul 23, 2018 News

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The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Office of Youth Empowerment, Ministry of the Presidency and Specialists in Sustained Youth Development and Research (SSYDR Inc.) has disbursed three grants to youth entrepreneurs involved in rural based businesses.
The simple ceremony was held at the FAO’s Brickdam Office on Thursday.
According to FAO, two youths, Olivia David and Francis Bailey received grants of US$3000 and a youth group, the Guyana Cassava Association, received US$5000. Presenting the grants on behalf of FAO was Country Representative, Reuben Robertson. These grants were disbursed under the project, “Strengthening decent rural employment opportunities for young women and men in the Caribbean”.
“This project supports youth who are interested and/or active in market-oriented agricultural and food related activities, including production, small-scale processing, agro-tourism, input supply and marketing, and other derived opportunities,” FAO explained.
In August 2018, 75 additional youth entrepreneurs will receive seed grant funding in amounts ranging between US$500 and US$3000.

“These young rural women and men were first trained by SSYDR Inc. for three weeks in Business, Entrepreneurship and Work Readiness.
“They were then invited to develop and submit business proposals. The project originally intended to fund and strengthen the livelihood activities of 14 additional youth beneficiaries. However, the high quality of the proposals received led to the decision to offer all youths funding to start their businesses. Guyanese rural youths have received the largest number of grants disbursed to any one country under the project.”
It was explained that David submitted a proposal to the project to help her build her agro processing and poultry rearing business.
“Olivia’s business, O D’s Preserves, is located at Bagotville West Bank Demerara. She has been involved in agriculture since a child assisting her parents in the cultivation of various crops and the rearing of poultry and livestock and remained in agriculture once she became an adult.

“David had been involved in cash crop farming at Silver Hill, Linden Highway for two years where she earned income to support her family’s needs. She augmented small-scale farming with agro processing to gain additional income.
“Her products were sold initially in her community and Linden. However, she recently made the decision to relocate her business to her childhood community of Bagotsville.”
FAO said that Olivia’s experience with value added agricultural products to date has persuaded her that expansion in that area would be extremely lucrative as she believes that there is a ready market available for such products.
“Olivia received training in agro processing from the Guyana School of Agriculture through a collaborative effort with the Office of the Presidential Advisor on Youth Empowerment.”
While David currently produces and markets preserved fish and shrimp; fruits; hot sauce, Bar- B-Q sauce; achar and rears chickens, she will utilize the monies from the grant to preserve other meats (salted beef, ham), preserve vegetables and rear pigs.
She will be working to improve a Bar-B-Q sauce line.

With regards to Bailey, he has been a beekeeper with his own apiary and bee removal service, “The Bee Musketeers”, for the past two years.
He has also been involved in information and internet related services through graphics and video production for around 10 years and has been able to apply these skills to the Bee Musketeers business by visually documenting his work via facebook as a teaching and marketing tool:
“Prior to starting his own apiary, Francis received training and mentorship from an experienced beekeeper with 14 years in the field. He worked alongside him for one year and three months during which he imparted key skills through practical hands-on means. During this time, Francis assisted in capturing over 60 bee swarms across the country and subsequently ran the apiary on his own for over three months to further equip him with the requisite skills and confidence of managing on his own.”
With funding under the project, Bailey aims to expand the quantity of product and range of services offered by his start-up apiary and increase the number of wild bee swarms he catches through the purchase of additional woodworking equipment and tools.
The Guyana Cassava Association is recipient of the first group award.
“This group was formed by three enterprising young people, Jewel Collier-Swan, who has been engaged in cash crop farming for the past four years; Judason Bess who has been involved in the natural production of fruits and vegetables for two years and Grace Albert, a founding member of the Rural Women Agro Processing group – a group established 6 years ago that processes cassava and makes farine.”
The trio connected as participants in a Guyana Learning Route exercise under this project. “They also participated in the Regional Learning Route in the Dominica Republic. Jewel, Judason and Grace decided to create a plan that will help to foster greater youth interest and inclusion in all aspects of agribusiness. Their aim is to create a local association for production, processing and marketing of cassava among youth with the aim of: fostering youth participation in agriculture and agriculture related activities and providing the much-needed collaboration, vigour, interest and innovation needed for agriculture sustainability and youth involvement,” FAO explained.
Their association intends to link cassava producers, processers and markets together under one umbrella.
“They intend to use the grant to invest in production, processing and marketing. The cassava association will initially invest in scaling cassava production on Jewel’s farm and using the produce to create value added products such as cassava flour and animal feed. Their initial focus will be to purchase equipment and supplies to produce cassava flour from some of the cassava harvested on Jewel’s farm.”

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