The scales are balanced heavily against local consumers when they purchase local fruit. A parcel of four oranges is available already packed in a highly knotted netted plastic bag. Maybe two of those oranges are scheduled to enter the compost heap within a day or two.
As for bananas, it is now difficult to know where to buy a kilogram or half a kilogram. It appears that farmers, perhaps to avoid theft, pick their bunches of bananas before they are fully matured. The bananas do not ripen as one expects. Some turn black while others are studded with black spots. The sensitive stomach rejects these soft parts which also enter the compost heap.
A consumer is tempted to purchase a box of seaside grapes without testing them. He discovers that the grapes are dry due to the drought and there is hardly any semblance of seaside grape flavour.
On the other side of the scale, the vendor has to be paid in the legal tender and is fully protected. Every penny of the payment has to be legal tender.
The Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) now offers some assistance to consumers.
In keeping with its mandate to develop national standards, the GNBS has formulated a number of standards for the fresh fruit and vegetable sector in order to improve the quality of products available tor local consumption as well as exportation. These include the specifications for grades of banana, pineapple, watermelon, cassava, eddoes, plantains and hot peppers. These standards have been harmonized with international standards, mainly codex standards, to facilitate the acceptance of Guyana’s products in international markets.
The GNBS has formulated three more standards which will further enhance the operations in this sector. These are:
1. Code of practice for the packaging of fresh fruits and vegetables. This code of practice specifies hygienic practices for the production and packaging of fresh fruits and vegetables. It addresses microbial, physical and chemical hazards, as these relate to good agricultural and manufacturing practices.
2. Guidelines for the production, processing, labelling and marketing of organically produced foods. The guidelines set out the principles of organic production at farms, preparation, transport, labelling and marketing stages, and provide an indication of accepted permissible inputs for soil fertilizing and conditioning, plant pest and disease control, food additives and processing aids.
3. Guidelines for good management practices for micro and small enterprises. The guidelines in this standard set out the principles for implementing a Quality Management System, Environmental Management System and an Occupational Health and Safety Management System in all small enterprises, including the fresh fruit and vegetable sector.
When farmers utilize available standards there will be a further increase in demand for local fruits and vegetables on the international market, which will require expansion in their level of production, hence a significant increase in revenue.
Further it is compulsory that Guyana as an exporting country of fresh fruits and vegetables comply with the international quality and safety standards promulgated by international standards institutions under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary measures (SPS).
For the export market certainly yes, but for the local market why bother, it will only result in an increase of prices. Speckled bananas and mangoes are the only ones I will buy. A bird picked mango was the best.
As kids we picked up jamoon and ginip from the ground, brushed off the dirt and threw it right into our mouths. I have never been sick except for the occasional flu and even that will not affect me anymore with my new eating lifestyle.
I saw so many kids in the country side, all snatty nose, dirty singlet, sticking some chicken poop in their mouths. These kids grew up healthy as an ox. You go to St. Judes hospital and see 2 and 5 year olds, suffering from cancer, diabetes,rhumatism,lukemia, you name it. Why is that?
A study recently conducted at Harvard Medical school, found that we are comprised of only one tenth human cells. The rest of our bodies are made up of over 100,000 types of bacteria, viruses and parasites both externally and internally. Some of these micro organisms are essential to our lives, we would die without their presence.
We need to eat healthy, which should be a lot of raw vegetables, grain, fruits and herbs. That’s it. All of the diseases of cancer, diabetes, rhumatism, etc only came about after we started filling our diet with refined processed foods and artifical vitamins. Our ancestors has no food quality controls, they foraged, picked up the food where ever they found it and ate it.
The entire medical and health industries, set us up to be constantly sick in body and mind. We should go to the doctor every six months for a mamogram, a pap smear, a colon test.
We wake up in the morning and need a caffeine fix and some nicotine. We have a headache, take a pill, we have stomach ache, take a pill,we watch too much TV, there is now a pill for that. Too much internet a pill for that also. No wonder we are such a sick nation of drug abusers.
When I first came to the USA I instantly began putting on weight with all of the cheap sweet junk foods I ate. I am watching TV with all this news about chloresterol that has now clogged my heart and arteries that when time came for my first physical checkup, I was prepared for the worst. Come on doc, dont lie to me, just tell me how many months I have to live and get it over with. He told me I was in perfect health. I was reborn again in that instant.
Our molecules are constantly evesdropping on our thoughts. If we constantly think about negative things, about sickness, disease and germs. We will eventually succumb to our sublimial thought suggestions, become sick and die.
That is why you find that 10 people are subjected to the same environmental conditions but only one become sick. An old lady in her eighties sitting at the market place with a cigarette stub stuck to her lips and chatting away and another person who said they were only exposed to second hand smoke has lung cancer.
So the next time you go to the market and your ripe mango falls out of your hands, do not throw it away. Pick it up, brush it off and give it to me. I will eat it and nothing will happen.
Joe.
…. go Joe go ,,, ah see yuh funny bone ticklin yuh ,,, if is two fall pon de groun ,, tell meh caz i want de adah wan ! i use to live in stanley town N/A B’bice ,,, Miss Pitt can tell yuh wah we use to do in she back yard ,, de bats use to drop fruits in we yard ,, and dem was de sweetest ,, till we had to be dewormed !… Miss Pitt mussee gan home lang years ago ,, she had good sight she used to see we as soon as we duck thru de baab wyah fence ,, an den sheh gon tell we she loosin de dawg ! de dawg dem use to come andah de tree bark an den run back andah de house ,, nex ting yuh know dem fas asleep !…
back home every yard gat a friut tree ,,, some mo dan 1 kineah fruit tree !…. dem was meh favahrit yaad !… fruits was de game goin home fum school in de afatah noon !
Mike and did you also notice that only the fruits that you stole from the neighbour yard always seemed to be the sweetest even the young green tamarinds?
Those were the days my friend.
Joe.