Dear Editor,
I’m seeing different attempts to relive President Burnham in the Agro Expo with claims that he said the exact things, and that the current ideas are a copy of Forbes’ initiatives. Indeed, Burnham had good ideas and the philosophy of growing your own is one we can never criticize. However, what is happening currently is in no way the exact thing as what Forbes implemented. Firstly, the world is a smaller place now, more of a global village, than when Forbes was around. Whatever was Forbes’ motivation, a sense of deprivation plagued Guyanese in some respects (and yes his own supporters too). Can we ask followers of Forbes’ party to now go back to rice flour and forget wheat flour? Look how many products are wheat based; look how many recipes are more global or foreign recipes than local. Were we to stay contented with Demico Chicken and keep out the franchises? Guyana is currently experiencing an influx of foreigners. Do we tell them they must eat only what we grow, and not what they’re accustomed to? Tourism is a hand in hand industry with our emerging oil and gas sector, and provision of products and services that are in demand will be more important than just “using what we have” though local content must be given priority. It’s important that we maximize local raw materials but it must not be at the expense of quality. Here is where global competition in products and services will be important. To tell Guyanese that they must produce quality and to create legislation (whose enforcement weaknesses we know too well) will not be as expedient as allowing competition, though not unfair as we have evidence right here where local providers have risen to international standards. Mahadeo Panchu comes to mind because he rose to the standards of the international firms.
My point is, while the focus is on locally grown, and locally produced, we must not lose sight of the bigger picture by focusing on only local as we are in a smaller world where there must be cognizance of absolute advantage and comparative advantage. Even Forbes in this age would have agreed, and would have known that he could not preach eat only what you grow. There are some things we will never be able to produce. What President Ali and the other Caricom leaders did over the past weekend was to propose growing things which we can but are importing with the ultimate aim at reducing cost. It is not the same as eat only what we grow.
Kind regards,
Darren Kissoon
