“Our farmers are lacking in the area of record-keeping, and are often not able to keep track of whether they are making a profit or loss, so we want them to treat their farms as a business and not just as a traditional means of income.”
These were the words of Guyana Marketing (GMC) Crop Extension Officer, Dianna Dodson-George, as she addressed a forum for farmers.
The forum was held yesterday by the GMC in collaboration with Partners of the Americas Farmer-to-Farmer Initiative. The collaboration has in fact seen a series of Business Accounting training fora with farmers across several regions. Farmers in the agricultural village of Laluni were the latest to benefit from this initiative.
The training exercise is being conducted by Tim Cobbs, a representative of Partners of the Americas Farmer-to-Farmer Initiative. Cobbs is also a professional Farm Manager with years of experience in Farm Management.
In providing an overview of the course, he said, “The Farmer-to-Farmer programme of Partners of the Americas in conjunction with the new GMC invited me to come down to talk about business, record keeping specifically. The idea behind it was if people – producers specifically – were able to write down a few things and keep track of where they are at, that they would become better business people.”
The proper management of records is the ideal way for farmers to not only keep track of their money flow but also aids in letting them know if their business is turning a profit or not.
Raymond Dundas, one of the farmers that participated in the recent session, considered this to be the most comprehensive exercise. “We learnt a lot from this forum because, in the past years, we never had such a good teacher, a good lecturer like this one.”
Another forum on Record Keeping will be held today in Linden.
