There are several challenges, both short and longer term that accrue to the agriculture sector in the wake of the floods that are still affecting significant areas of the country at this time. The loss of assets in the form of both fruit and vegetables and livestock is the one that comes easiest to mind. Then there is the considerable loss of income accruing to the farmers of all hues as well as the farm hands and other persons whose jobs have to do with the well-being of the sector.
Scarcities can accrue as well. Fresh fruit and vegetables apart, extensive loss of livestock would have implications for the availability of meats which are an integral part of the domestic diet and are also important in terms of satisfying the needs of external markets. Add to that the fact that in circumstances where the water remains on the land for extended periods, its stagnancy allows for all kinds of diseases.
There are other things to consider too… like the considerable dependence of other countries on our agricultural produce and the likelihood, once we are unable to recover from the flooding quickly enough, that valuable markets might be lost to opportunistic competitors..
The fact of the advent of oil and gas does not mean that, for the time being, our economic fortunes as much as our national pride do not still revolve around our ability to feed ourselves and around the fact that we have been dubbed the food basket of the Caribbean. There is a certain ‘ring’ to that label which oil and gas can never have, since the far greater earnings associated with that industry does little to erase the downside associated with its spotty environmental image.
Part of the problem with the perennial flooding that brings agriculture to its knees in large swathes of the country is the fact that, in some quarters, the phenomenon is treated as though it is a kind of historical inevitability so that every time one examines the extent of the damage wreaked by the floodwaters, the question arises as to whether over time, sufficient effort and resources have been allocated to mitigation to at least reduce the level of the annual devastation to which we appear to have resigned ourselves.
One must of course make clear the fact that not only are we powerless against the ravages of the weather, though it has to be said that we ought, by now, to have learnt sufficiently from its pattern and its intensity to erect defence mechanisms, which, while not being able to altogether eradicate the consequences, might at least play the kind of damage control role that would reduce the level of devastation and losses.
We hear, year after year, of acres of crops being deluged and livestock perishing beneath the floodwaters in circumstances where drainage pumps are either non-functional or else, not in place, and about response initiatives which appear in the paltriness of their contributions, to have miscalculated the scale of the challenge. All too frequently some communities appear to suffer for no other reason than an absence of forward planning, never mind the fact that, these days, bad weather can be predicted with the greatest of technological ease.
Most years, either during the floods or at the end of the downpours there occurs public after-the-fact outpourings that raise questions about construction and engineering deficiencies that allow for the floodwaters to have far greater traction than they should.
Going forward, there is the risk that climate change-related phenomenon might mean that further evolving changing weather patterns could confront us with even more dire consequences.
No one is, of course, suggesting that our defences against the rage of the weather will ever be airtight or that we will not simply have to come to terms with the reality that our battle with the weather will always be an attritional confrontation. The fact is, however, that in a circumstance where recurring challenges require the continuous application of responses designed to enhance our capability to respond to those challenges, we in Guyana appear, all too frequently to be back-footed by challenges that cost us dearly. That has to end.
