By Dacia Whaul
The Ministry of Agriculture yesterday hosted its inaugural cook-off competition to launch its calendar of activities for Agriculture Month in October.
The compound of the Ministry of Agriculture was transformed into an arena of aromas for more than ten competitor agencies and departments, who displayed meals and beverages prepared with mostly local ingredients. Meals ranged from metemgee to cassava flour cakes and beverages ranged from lemon grass and passion fruit concoctions to a callaloo drink.
Minister of Agriculture Dr. Leslie Ramsammy announced that the annual event would be used to promote local foods and recipes. “We want to ensure that we support our farmers, [and] agro-processors and, therefore, support a development programme that creates employment and entrepreneurial opportunity,” he stated. He reiterated the Ministry’s call for the consumption of local produce, as he pointed out that the support of imported products aid employment in those countries and therefore make it more difficult for the development of local products.
Ramsammy said that the cook-off was a new way of launching Agriculture Month, which will focus on every day agriculture matters. He further mentioned that on World Food Day, October 16, all of Guyana will be urged to cook meals with minimum amounts of imported ingredients as a new feature of the annual observation. He explained that things like salt would still be needed but reiterated that the goal is to cook a meal in Guyana that has nothing that is imported. “Wherever food is prepared…,” he said, “we will encourage them to use recipes that makes maximum use of local products.”
He added that restaurants, both small and large, will also be asked to support the initiative by having a special menu that makes maximum use of local products. He said that the only products that are imported in our meals for that day must be products that cannot be replaced at that time. He also said that a survey will be done on World Food Day to indicate what percentage of meals were in fact composed of imported material so that the ministry can keep those records and will be in a position to say each year whether the percentage has been reduced.
Ramsammy also announced that Agriculture Month will see the publication of a book of Guyanese recipes. “So, we are actually soliciting people to send in their recipes and we will select a number of them for publication,” he said.
The third planned event during Agriculture Month is an agro-processors’ day, to be observed on the last Saturday of October. He said that it will be a day every year for the recognition of agro-processors, particularly the small ones, as well as, highlighting the products that they produced, popularising them in Guyana, and ensuring that these Guyanese products become preferred products. “Our goal is to enlarge the local markets for our local products so that farmers have more opportunity and farmers businesses’ can grow,” he said.
Ramsammy added that other goals are to ensure that our export market grows beyond sugar and rice and fish and to reduce imports of food into Guyana from US$200 per capita. He said that some of that has to do with everyday imported snacks consumed.
Ramsammy, who is a former Health Minister, also opined that most of the snacks imported for consumption may not be good for our health. Guyana, like most countries in the world, he said, has increasing amounts of overweight and obese citizens as well as increasing amounts of micro-nutrient deficiencies due to the fact that increasingly we are consuming processed foods with greater than the daily recommended amount of salt and trans-fats.
“And all of these replaced healthy foods,” he said, while adding that the annual cook off is part of the sensitisation of the Guyanese public and developing a new culture of eating what we produce as well as the culture of preparing the things we produce in a healthy way. For that reason, he said the ministry will be working with people who develop recipes so that we can all become very proficient in preparing healthy foods.
He said that Guyana is proud of the fact that it is recognised as a food secure country but is also on a mission to becoming nutrition secure. “We therefore have started a mission and a journey today,” he declared.
Meanwhile, although some persons in attendance at the cook off had initial reservations about sampling a few of the recipes, those who eventually relented were pleasantly surprised. For instance, the aroma of the callaloo drink was not inviting, but anyone who might have held their breath and tried swallowing the concoction would have soon discovered that it was delightful.
At the end of the competition, the Agriculture Sector Development Unit emerged the winner with 47 points for its pineapple pork dish. Just one point short, the Pesticide and Toxic Chemicals Control Board copped second place with its baked fish with cheese recipe, while the Food and Agriculture Organisation secured third with 45 points for its metemgee.
