Pakaraima Flavours Sundried Tomato Products Enters fourth year

Aug 03, 2020 News

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– Determined to grow even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic

Starting a new manufacturing business can be daunting. Starting a new manufacturing business which is vertically integrated and relies on agricultural production increases the challenges manifold. Doing so in the remote Guyanese hinterland and targeting tertiary packaged products to compete with established and world-recognized brands requires a special kind of dedication. And not a little audacity.
But this is just what the Institute of Applied Science and Technology (IAST) has been doing with the Pakaraima Flavours Sundried Tomato Ketchup and Salad Dressings. Professor Narine, the Director of the IAST, claims that it is the audacity and stubborn tenacity of the Patamona Farmers and the Institute’s small but dedicated staff that has resulted in the project not crumbling in the first three years. Now in its fourth year, the business has grown but this has not been without dealing with major challenges. From a production of approximately 7,000 lbs. of fresh tomatoes in 2017, the project has grown each year: approximately 19,000 lbs. in 2018 and 33,000 lbs. in 2019. Forty thousand pounds or 18 tonnes is the production target for the 2020 production season underway.
Pakaraima Flavours products begin their tenuous journey to the consumers’ plate on the fertile slopes of the Pakaraima Mountains, in remote villages such as Paramakatoi, Uruberu, Bamboo Creek, Yawong and Mountain Foot. Here, tomatoes are grown by the Paramakatoi Agricultural Cooperative without the use of any fertilizers. The area, located in Administrative Region Eight: Potaro – Siparuni, is storied for its fertile soil, pristine creeks and waterways, plentiful rainfall and cool temperatures. It is known for its shy but indomitable Patamona farmers too.
Tomatoes produced by the native Patamona famers of the Cooperative are brought over the steep mountain trails on All Terrain Vehicles to a fully solar powered food processing facility built and managed by the IAST. There, the tomatoes go through a rigorous post harvest process, staffed by trained young Patamona Food Technicians. The processed tomatoes are then dried in a solar dryer, designed and constructed by the IAST. The Sundried Tomatoes loose more than 90% moisture, develop a unique flavour and become shelf-stable. The stabilized dried fruit can be stored for years and are transported using relatively inexpensive overland transportation, compared to by aircraft.
The dried fruit are converted into Ketchup and Salad Dressings in a small but state of the art facility, using small batch sizes which lead to consistent quality and a high degree of process control. T

his final stage is located in the extensive facilities developed at the IAST over the past 14 years for the purpose of commercial production of specialized food and cosmetic products. The IAST also boasts some of the Caribbean region’s most advanced testing equipment for physical and chemical analysis, also developed incrementally over the past 14 years. As a result, the final products receive world class quality control testing. The result of this journey, covering great distances, spanning cultures and fueled by a stubborn refusal to accept failure, is exciting. Not only because the products are of an extremely high quality and are very well packaged, but because the effort is demonstrating that local products, even those that rely on such a tenuous and arduous journey from the Guyanese Hinterland, can compete with the best of imported products.
In its fourth year of production, Narine explains that taking market share in the crowded condiments market segment, where the product offerings are overwhelmed by world-recognized imported brands is an uphill battle. Be that as it may, it is one in which the Pakaraima Flavours brand is now beginning to have some traction and small wins.
In too many cases Guyanese consumers to their ultimate detriment are still very foreign-minded in their consumptive choices. Narine points out that there is a vacuum of national policies which are designed to encourage consumption of local products. For example, there is no policy encouraging even state-funded organizations such as Hospitals, the Defence Force, the Police, the Prison Service and other such organizations to support local products. The result is a vicious circle; when local products cannot enjoy success in local markets, their quality and capitalization suffer. Ultimately, the sector atrophies and we have what now obtains: much talk about being the bread-basket of the Caribbean but very little tangible investment and few tertiary products. Many of these attitudes have their genesis in Guyana’s colonial past and related conditioning, but many Guyanese are also beginning to suggest that this lethargy related to local development and local products cannot continue if the country is to develop in a balanced and sustainable fashion.
THE SUPPLY SIDE: AGRICULTURE
Agriculture at scale in the Guyana Hinterland presents several systemic challenges related to a paucity of labour, lack of capital investments in land preparation, water management and stewardship, lack of adequate expert agricultural extension personnel, no farm to market roads, distant markets, no access to high density power for post-harvest processing, a dearth of policy and targeted taxation incentives, no available crop insurance products and no concerted national focus. These challenges present a nexus with the acute need for sustainable development in Indigenous Communities. The approach taken by the IAST and the Patamona Farmers of the North Pakaraimas attempts to address these challenges through utilizing a “Cooperative” approach which entails diffusing individual risk, enabling volume supply and embracing full economic flow back to Cooperative members. It also paves the way for utilization of the accumulated knowledge of the Patamonas in growing produce in the region for more than 7, 000 years. Utilization of drying as a post harvest method alleviates the need for high density electrical power and relies instead on sunlight.

The project started off with a variety of tomatoes, the Mongol, being supplied by the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) to the project. From 2017 to 2019, the yield of dried fruit to fresh fruit was poor, yielding only 2.7% of dried fruit, by mass. Tomatoes had never been cultivated in the region as a commercial crop so it was anticipated that optimization would be necessary. NAREI and the IAST collaborated on calcium augmentation and other forms of interventions, but the dried yield of the Mongol variety in the North Pakaraima mountains continued to be low. Furthermore, individual Patamona farmers were reluctant to plant in communal farms. This resulted in acute challenges for fruit collection and transportation, sending up costs. The Patamona cultural approach to farming is to locate their farms several days walk away from the village. This does have significant benefits in conservation and regrowth. It therefore meant that solutions needed to be cognizant of the ecological benefits.
In 2020, the IAST took a decision to test 13 different varieties of tomatoes in direct field trials in the North Pakaraimas. This was done after an extensive literature review of suitable varieties so that only varieties with good potential for the soil type and climate were chosen. Varieties were grown with various conditions including spacing, augmentation with calcium, levels of irrigation, mulching, etc. A dominant variety, well adjusted to the climatic and moisture conditions was the clear choice after this study was recently concluded. Without any form of augmentation, the fresh fruit yield per plant showed an increase of 60% over the Mongol variety. Furthermore, the dry yield of this variety increased by 230%. This new variety is the Mana Hybrid variety. This is the variety which is now cultivated for the 2020 growing season. Harvesting and processing has begun and the production numbers are closely tracking the field trials.
Several other improvements were made to the production protocols. Communal plots with easier access to trails were chosen in 2020. Cooperative members were all assigned to plots within the communal plots and each Cooperative Member was allocated quota cards. The quota system was designed and implemented by the IAST in 2020 to ensure logistical and target control between the agricultural production, processing and marketing. In addition, the communal plots will be moved regularly, as per Patamona conventional wisdom, to ensure replenishment of the soil and ecosystems. The processing capacity has been increased, with the IAST constructing a second solar dryer. This will also aid significantly in avoiding spoilage losses during poor sunlight and during over-production from the fields.
The Pakaraima Flavours Project is a study in the focus and stewardship which is required to build sustainable, vertically integrated, value-added business ventures among Indigenous Communities in the Guyanese Hinterland. Such projects require constant improvements and a focus on the cultural practices encountered across the value chain. They are as much a study in self-identity and compromised approaches as they are commercial- as IAST says, IS WE OWN!

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