A series of visits to agricultural communities by SN reporter Gaulbert Sutherland has focused a piercing light on many issues connected with the government’s Grow More Food campaign.
Members of the public will recall the zeal and zest with which Minister of Agriculture, Mr Robert Persaud tackled this project for cash crops and non-traditional crops over the last two years in particular. It manifested itself in many phases, including promoting the growth of four crops: pineapple, peanuts, plantains and passion fruit, and then morphed into an across-the-board grow more food campaign and was then tailored to a strategy where market preferences would decide which crops should be grown. The campaign also saw a frenetic distribution of seeds and other items across the country at a cost of millions amid continuing concerns about the unwitting introduction of gene modified material.
Thus far Mr Sutherland’s expeditions have touched Parika, Black Bush Polder, Ruby, Mahaica Creek and Laluni. A multitude of complaints were aired by farmers all across the country. However, before these are further examined questions need to be asked of the government and Minister Persaud about the objective of the campaign. If it was just as it sounded – grow more food – then it would have been a rudimentary appeal with limited effect. If it was a fully integrated concept which facilitated increased output having value added to it before being sold into reliable markets with higher earnings to farmers then it has fallen far short of the mark. From the evidence on the ground, the latter might have been the hoped for fruit, but there is no sign of this. The former seems to be the reality on the ground. Indeed, in the interview which kicked off the series, Minister Persaud himself played down expectations of results. He pointed out that the programme is now getting off the ground and the results from the investments won’t be seen for a couple of years though there are activities for “early take-off.” Four years later and hundreds of millions of dollars spent, the output from this massive campaign seems paltry.
The complaints of the farmers are of many types.
* Farmers took to heart the call to grow more food and invested but have seen average returns;
* the countrywide drive to grow more food has resulted in gluts that have lowered prices for consumers during certain periods but wastage of numerous crops in the field as prices were too low;
* as is always the case, middlemen are making a bundle of money while the farmers have hardly seen a hike in their take;
* there is little or no value added opportunities for small farmers;
* farmers continue to service their local markets as there are few openings to overseas markets;
* the majority of farmers are unable to tap into the limited export markets as the requirements are onerous and the exporters are not reliable;
* well thought out assistance from the Grow More Food campaign, the New Guyana Marketing Corporation and the National Agricultural Research Institute has been lacking;
* farm to market roads are in a dire state and particularly true of places like Black Bush Polder despite many promises;
* there have been incalculable annual losses due to flooding which the authorities have been unable to manage.
There are many others but these provide an intense flavour of the lost opportunities of this campaign. As enthusiastic as Minister Persaud might have been about pushing food production this vehicle was operating on used tyres that were just waiting to blow out. Considering that the PPP/C had been in office for 14 years prior to the launch of the campaign one would have expected that a firm basis would have been laid for the ‘leap’ that Minister Persaud anticipates. Infrastructural burdens would have been overcome, canning and other processing would have long enticed investors and the knots encumbering nearby lucrative markets would have been slashed. None of this has advanced.
It speaks volumes of the disjointed, visionless and moribund nature of PPP governance. Considering President Jagdeo’s unbroken 11-year presence in the inner sanctum of Caricom and his being entrusted with lead responsibility for agriculture one would have thought that he would have been able to chart a robust future for agriculture and agro-processing here. The results have been negligible and Minister Persaud’s try at the wheel has been just as unimpressive. Surely there have been successes and increases in production levels of some crops and exports, but nothing to match the hype. The expenditure of large sums on this campaign including money from the Inter-American Development Bank could not have been intended to only lower food prices and to create gluts. There must have been some larger vision for agro-processing. If there wasn’t then this has been a colossal blunder.
The expenditure on this campaign must be carefully scrutinized by civil society and certainly by the Economic Services Committee of Parliament and the Public Accounts Committee for wisdom and value for money.
As with the President’s Youth Choice Initiative and the impending laptop project, the judgement of the PPP/C in expending large sums of public money has to be called into question and this agriculture campaign is no different.
Considering Caricom’s high food import bill, Guyana could have been well-positioned not only to reorient the country’s economic pillars, but to become the premier supplier to countries like Trinidad. Instead, Port of Spain has resorted to starting its own mega farms completely ignoring the appeal by Guyana to invest in this country.
The dilemma for the government is whether to continue forking out huge sums of money on a project that isn’t going anywhere or to radically revamp it. Whatever it does, it should revisit the grassroots and honestly calibrate the farmers’ opinions and advice on this programme.