Dear Editor,
We are now using every available method and opportunity to let everyone know how important it is to grow more food on every available piece of land at our disposal. Of course this is the right thing to do but we should have been doing it a long long time ago. I can remember that the late President Forbes Burnham coined the phrase ‘Produce or perish’ and ‘Feed, clothe and house’ the nation. The late President Cheddi Jagan also used to say how important it was that we strove for maximum yields and diversify into other crops apart from rice.
We have been hearing about global warming and whether we as an agricultural country have done enough over the last decade or so; I am not sure. While it is true the food crisis is a global one and many of our neighbouring countries could not have made adequate preparations, because of their land space and population, in Guyana the situation is totally different and we are better than many other countries where food production is concerned.
In Region Two, Pomeroon-Supenaam, more than ninety per cent of the people depend heavily on agriculture either directly or indirectly. While a lot was done for the production of rice in this region, for example improving the drainage system, farm-to-market roads and a lot more for which the Regional Administrator and the Ministry of Agriculture must be commended, in the area of other-crops more could have been done. I am a crop farmer for over twenty years. I produce plantains, eddoes, water melons and pumpkins, among other crops, and while I don’t want to be seen as blowing my own trumpet, in 1996 at the National Award ceremony for Agriculture I was awarded the first prize for other-crop farming on a commercial scale, and again in 2001 I was awarded the runner-up prize for the best managed project from the Institute of Private Enterprise Development. So I think that I am qualified to say a few things on the production and marketing of food. For farmers to produce on a large scale land must be available, and finance and markets for their produce must be readily available also.
About three years ago the residents of Supenaam to Riverstown were promised five thousand acres of land behind the main canal. We were told to form ourselves into groups numbering about thirty to thirty-five persons. About ten groups were formed, and the Regional Chairman had a meeting with us. We were very excited about the prospects, and we did everything that was asked of us only to be told that the idea was no longer engaging the attention of the administration. I must say that seven out of every ten persons who are full-time farmers work on other people’s land and sometimes pay huge rentals.
As for financing, that may be ready available at the lending agencies, but not for crop farmers. The interest rates are very high.
I think that it is time that the crop and livestock farmers had access to loans at interest rates that are similar to those which the rice farmers and millers are benefiting from. Rice farmers through the Rice Producers Associa-tion have had their concerns addressed in a timely manner and have benefited tremendously through the close working relationship with the government, which is very good for the development of the industry. But maybe because the crop and livestock farmers are not organized, many a time I get the feelings that a lot more could be done for us. The most frustrating time in a farmer’s life is when you get a bountiful crop and you are not certain when, where and to who you would be able to sell to and for what price. Of course this does not always happen, but when you are producing perishable goods you need to have a guaranteed market, irrespective of the price, which we all know will never be stable, but should be reasonable.
It is true that whatever is plentiful now, will be scarce in a time to come. We must not look only at the area of production, we must also look at preserving and canning; we dump a lot of food daily, especially farm produce, and what we cannot consume or export today we must be able to do tomorrow.
Having said all of that, we must all support the grow more food campaign in our own way, and I do hope that the land promised to farmers or would-be farmers, would be made available soon, not only in Region two but in all other regions.
Yours faithfully,
Archie W Cordis
