Taking things into ‘Account’
─ Accounting, Record Keeping training for Farmers
DPI, Guyana, Thursday, September 12, 2019
The Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) in conjunction with Partners of the Americas Farmer-to-Farmer Initiative is hosting a series of Business Accounting training forums with farmers across several regions.
Farmers in the agricultural village of Laluni were the latest to benefit from this initiative. The forum is a timely one for Laluni, as Crop Extension Officer for GMC, Dianna Dodson-George explained. “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.”
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.
He provided an overview of the course. “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,” Cobbs explained.
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 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”
The final forum on Record Keeping will be held on Friday September 13, in Linden, all farmers in the area are encouraged to join the session.