Exactly two years ago, a column in this newspaper had addressed the volatility of the global food supply. It was around this time that there were almost daily news reports about food riots in parts of Africa, Europe and Central America as climate change among other events significantly altered the environment in which the agriculture sector operated causing a sharp rise in the price of food and a deepening in world hunger and poverty.
The warning then was that the food shortages affecting the world would eventually have an impact on Guyana if action was not taken. And given that during the 2005 Great Flood and in the three ensuing years, there had been a litany of cries from local farmers that : “acres of rice, green vegetables and fruit trees; cows, sheep, chickens, ducks…,” were being lost to flooding; it was a warning that needed to be taken seriously. What also needed to be seriously looked at then was the unpredictability of extreme weather conditions.
What emerged very soon after was the government’s ‘Grow More Food’ campaign, ably touted by Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud. And while one might want to suggest that the authorities heeded the warning, more likely than not they would have done their own research (maybe) and made their own predictions.
Grandiose plans to boost exports were plugged and an $89 million agro-packaging and export facility was built at Parika to augment the one already in existence at Sophia. A formal opening was held in October 2008 to coincide with Agriculture Month and the boast then was that the facility had the capacity to package 40,000 lbs of produce per day, for export obviously, and would be available free of cost to farmers and exporters.
The thrust was towards Guyana regaining its ‘breadbasket’ status. Thus, in keeping with the ‘Grow More Food’ campaign, seeds and seedlings of all varieties were doled out to farmers, kitchen garden planters, even housewives and they were urged to ‘grow more’ of whatever it was they received. And this is what they did.
However, there is nothing to indicate that Guyana is exporting 40,000 lbs of produce per day, even though it should be more when the Sophia packaging facility is taken into account. The result is that today Guyana has become its own breadbasket and its farmers are on the way to becoming basket cases as the outlook for them is extremely bleak. After three straight years of losses to floods, they were finally able to produce bountiful harvests only to have a glut eat away their projected profits.
While on the face of it the ‘grow more’ campaign is an excellent idea, as food security is important, an integrated approach to it was absolutely necessary; certain criteria and goals examined and set and markets secured.
Secure markets for produce grown ought to have been a specific objective since even in the worst of times, Guyana has never been at the stage where supplying the domestic market ever became a nail-biting issue. Meanwhile, there have been reports in the international media about the demand for certain ‘health’ foods, for instance Acai Berry, which is found in neighbouring Brazil. While the growing of this particular food here might not have been feasible, this is the kind of exploring that the Ministry of Agriculture through the National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) ought to have been doing to find niche markets for produce. Non-traditional exports have long been on the agenda and NARI experimented with growing mushrooms some years ago. Private farmers have been bolder, growing broccoli and cauliflower among other vegetables which are usually imported; proof that crop diversification can be as wide as we want it to be. The government needs to play catch up. There is no running away from climate change therefore policies must be put in place that take into account adaptation to and mitigation of extreme weather conditions, which would allow for the agriculture sector to respond appropriately.
