Women make an impact: Gabriella Popo drives growth in agriculture

Gabriella Popo, the Director of Carib Seed, is a strong, resilient and innovative woman who, through her work with the company, is at the forefront of supporting farmers in Saint Lucia.
Under his leadership, the company explored new ways to diversify its agricultural product line and expanded into new markets.
Gabriella was raised in a farming family. His grandmother, mother and uncles were all farmers.She remembers traveling to the banana plantations with her mother as a child and witnessing market day. Agriculture was the family’s main source of income; thus, it was used to finance his studies.
She started working with Carib Seed shortly after graduating from Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in 2012.At the time, the company was small and Gabriella was in charge of responding to farmers’ requests.
“When I joined the company, I worked full time and then part time for a while. When I started with them they were small and working with the company I started exploring because the farmers had demands, they wanted something better, something new, they were stressing me out, they wanted a better quality harvest. So I started ordering from Guadeloupe and Martinique. We passed where we were at the back of American Drywall and when we spread out to do fertilizer and other farm inputs, we moved to the front of the building.
Gabriella led the business through its trials and tribulations until establishing a store in Dominica, which she also oversees. As a newcomer to the organization, she challenged herself to make a difference while working independently in Saint Lucia, with her boss stationed in Guadeloupe. Despite the language barrier, she learned the ropes and the company won more customers without running a single advertisement. She was on a roll from then on. Gabriella’s boss was so impressed with her professionalism and work ethic that he promoted her to manager.
“I love what I do. The experience is incredible because I work for a multinational. I have traveled to several countries including Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Grenada, France where one of our headquarters is located social, Africa, Kenya, Togo The company is not limited to trying new things and wanting to improve the quality of the product for the farmers.
“For now, I plan to continue working with the company and they gave me the green light to diversify, so now we order our own chemicals, to make sure farmers have everything they need. want and need. I might start my own business in the future, who knows, but being with the company I’ve achieved a lot personally and professionally.”