Dear Editor,
Keith Bernard writes: “. . . cash transfers, wage increases for public sector workers, and subsidies on essential goods. These are supposed to boost the economy and help people out, but they’re also driving prices up” (SN letters, August 26th). Keith succinctly hits the nail on the head, so to speak. “Too many dollars chasing too few goods” – this definition of inflation tells it all. Ok to do cash transfers to help in the short term; in the longer term, the government has got to crank up its economy to produce more goods and services, at lower cost.
One of my recommendations to raise production levels of food crops: Convert one sugar estate in each county (Berbice, Demerara, Essequibo) to grow food crops: fruits and vegetables; raise farm fish, milking cows for canned milk. Plantation-style farming, huge acreages with high-tech, mechanized farming must be the new way to produce food crops. If the government were to utilize this method, it would realize a quadrupling of production and at lower unit cost; and economies of scale.
Peasant-acreage farming with no technology, little or no mechanization – this method is very inefficient. In this age you will never get enough farm labour to do manual work when hi-tech can-do watering and fertilizing at the flick of an electric switch. Low productivity, subsistence farming – these things belong to a bygone era. Use cooling warehouses (solar power), refrigerated trucks to transport produce, milk, fish. Do hi-tech sorting and packaging. Export the surplus food.
Produce more food crops – doubling, quadrupling; prices will come down. Much of inflation comes with imported goods and services. But Guyana with lots of land and water, rain and sunshine should have no trouble ramping up production of food crops in a short span of time. I am not blaming the government for anything; I am urging the government to think of novel ways to grow food crops. There is a blogger who goes by the name Col123 on the SN online platform who thinks that every idea advanced by anyone – Keith Bernard on inflation, me on doubling food crops – is opposed to the government. Col123 blames the workers in Guyana for being too lazy, not working in their kitchen garden is the cause of food inflation. Well, well, that is 19th century thinking. Subsistence farming belongs to a bygone era.
Israel – 8 million population, little land, but they produce enough food crops for their people, and export some. How do they do it? Hi-tech, mechanized farming. And, most of their people are working in hi-tech manufacturing – hard drives, chips, motherboards, airline, auto parts – and so to fill the gap for workers they import thousands of farm labour from Thailand. Now that’s a successful model.
Sincerely,
Mike Persaud
