The Government is seeking to boost agricultural tourism and create awareness with the establishment of Guyana’s first Agri-Tourism Expo which will be held on November 1 and 2 at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, Greater Georgetown.
Director-General for the Department of Tourism, Donald Sinclair said the theme for the expo is ‘Linking Agriculture and Tourism for a greener future.’
The Agri-Tourism Expo will conclude the week of activities linking Agriculture Month observed in October and Tourism Month observed in November.
The expo will take on the form of a ‘market day’ across the country.
“We want to high profile market days, you know different regions have some prominent market days, we hear about Parika market day and Anna Regina market day,” Sinclair said.
The Director-General boasted that the Agri-Tourism Expo will be a huge, unique and exceptional farmers market with persons participating from all regions.
Meanwhile, Chief Technical Officer at the Ministry of Agriculture George Jarvis said that Agro-Tourism offers farmers the possibility of diversifying and generating additional income through tourism activities.
“Agro-tourism has the capacity to become the most transformative sub-sector in the economy; we must exploit this advantage,” Jarvis said.
According to Jarvis, there is potential in farming tourism, culinary tourism and health and wellness tourism in Guyana.
“The Government has an important role to play as they are responsible for creating the necessary policies that govern growth and sustainability.”
Meanwhile, the Agri-Tourism logo and monument was officially commissioned Tuesday evening at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.
The logo and monument were designed and constructed by three local artists -Gerald Gittens, Edward Lashley and Stanislaus Rodrigues. It is Guyana’s first female monument, Lady Coco.
Lady Coco was commissioned in October 2016 for the then Coconut Expo.
The logo depicts rice stalk on the left side and coconut branches on the right, surrounding a farm landscape with two horses.
The materials used to construct the logo and monument include toilet paper, mesh, starch and saw dust.
