Dear Editor,
In my opinion, the tragedy we see unfolding between the government, the opposition, NICIL and the Guyana Sugar Corporation, is like watching a train wreck happen in slow motion.
The biggest tragedy is not the workers’ plight, even though it is unthinkable what is happening to them; it is not that we hear that these lands are literally now being given to certain people; it is that these lands have a layout for our type of sugar cane growing which is unique on this planet, and in my opinion as a man who has worked at all levels of executive management in the sugar industry over the past 40 years, the destruction of that unique layout is a total disregard to our ancestors and our economic well-being, since that layout of fields and canals which took our ancestors hundreds of years to establish has enormous economic potential for Guyana. As aquaculture ponds.
Growing fish and shrimp on these lands can be as much as eight times more lucrative than sugar.
Most people visualise aquaculture as a backyard operation and not a big industry like sugar. It is a false perception. Last year, 2018, on this planet, 170.9 million tonnes of fish was harvested – 90.9 million tonnes from wild catch [ocean and rivers] and 80 million tonnes from aquaculture farms, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s assessment of the state of world fisheries and aquaculture. By comparison, worldwide sugar production was 179 million metric tonnes. But sugar sells at around US$0.13 per pound when fish sells for much more. One pound of fresh tilapia would sell for US$0.80 per pound and shrimp and prawns would be even more expensive.
But the expert, Dr Claude Boyd, who was brought here at my instigation on the GuySuCo board, estimates that a yield of 10,000 pounds per acre per year was achievable in our conditions, i.e. 4.53 tonnes per acre per year at 80 cents US per pound is US$8,000 per acre per year, when sugar is giving us less than US$900 per acre per year.
But more importantly, all of the problems we have with sugar – poor, heavy clay soil, low lying below sea level land, poor drainage, inability to mechanize and compete with the countries which have mechanized, all of which I described in a previous letter last month – become assets when growing fish or shrimp, since low level land and poor drainage does not matter in aquaculture, and heavy rainfall is an asset not a liability. Significant mechanization is not possible in aquaculture so no unfair competition there. Moreover, the operation will not be seasonal as now obtains in sugar. It will have to be an everyday-of-the-year operation because the product is perishable. So the workers’ income will be spread over a 365-day year.
All the evidence necessary to come to this conclusion is already in the hands of GuySuCo and therefore the Government of Guyana. Except in the rare situation where it is necessary for such fields to be converted to flat land for housing in the areas immediately adjoining towns, villages etc, no one should lease this land or otherwise dispose of it in any other way until the final determination is made as to the real future of the sugar industry, diversifying to aquaculture or abandonment. Blind men should not seek public office to fill their own pockets or to execute vicious political agendas. Honest men of vision should seek public office, men like Mr Hugh Desmond Hoyte.
Yours faithfully,
Tony Vieira
