2018 ASHS Annual Conference

In 2010, the Hydroponic Shade House Vegetable Production and Marketing Project was launched in Guyana in response to the floods and heavily saturated coastal soils to improve the economic welfare of rural households and the disadvantaged through food production and self-employment. The objective of the project, implemented and funded by Partners of the Americas and the Caribbean Self Reliance International (CASRI), was to provide rural households and the disadvantaged with the know-how, guidance and support mechanisms to be self-employed entrepreneurs with sustainable low-cost shade house vegetable production facilities. By 2013, 52 shade houses were established throughout the targeted regions. Today’s market sees knowledgeable consumers, demanding distribution networks and high quality and low price competition from domestic and international suppliers. Therefore, to gain domestic and export markets, suppliers of hydroponic grown crops have to provide the finest with the highest up-to-date quality standards at a competitive price.

Suzanne’s Project began in the Antalya province of Turkey in 2011 as a program to empower women farmers through agricultural business management training. It was envisaged that Suzanne’s Project could help empower female farmers in Guyana, beginning with the female shade house operators. In 2013, 7 female shade house growers in Guyana participated in Suzanne’s Project with 4 sessions on business management, 1 on computer skills, and 1 on technical topics. The women all completed business plans. Evaluations showed that they felt that the course was very valuable and they wish they had had the workshop sooner. Three of the women want to teach other women what they have learned. They were particularly proud of their mission statements, goals, and the fact that they understand financial statements now. They understand the importance of record keeping to calculate costs and returns and profitability and also appreciated networking with each other. They now feel that they can make more income from producing food in shade houses as businesses, than they can in alternative employment opportunities.