The use of rice, sugar lands should be integrated into economic activities not tied to the price of world market sugar

Dear Editor,

I refer to the pricing arguments developed by Mr Rajendra Rampersaud in the Stabroek News of November 26, in response to the concerns about the future of the Guyana sugar industry by Tarron Khemraj.

First, if the viability of our sugar industry is truly hinged to the vicissitudes of the marketplace, we are likely to do what Trinidad and Tobago did: shut it down. It is often overlooked that poor countries tend to receive the lowest competitive prices for their primary products traded in competitive world markets, while countries trading in manufactured goods tend to enjoy non-competitive high prices. This has meant historically low prices for Guyana’s primary exports and high prices for the industrial countries imports, including ‘Made in China’ industrial products. If price is the determining factor for the viability sugar or rice in Guyana, then the future of our two major agricultural industries would be a foregone conclusion – certain closure.

Second, economic security suggests that we need to be on a path of strategic development to ensure that we do not suffer economic displacement and widespread unemployment. Mr. Rampersaud hinted at the industry’s viability solution when he referred to “high value-added products” from sugar and “backward and forward linkages.” This is where economic and environmental strategies in land use are needed to ensure that we do not lose either rice or sugar as the main agricultural base for national development, since we are not yet blessed with oil, and the future of gold out of our land, is really out of our hands also for national development.

The sugar lands are integrated with the rice lands through Guyana’s unique drainage and irrigation systems in the backlands. Land use and labour employment should be coordinated so that lands are not abandoned and converted into non-agricultural uses for speculation and short-term private gains. This requires coordination of economic activities in such areas as dairy, grass, and grain production, so they are strategically integrated to give the highest output per worker and the highest productivity in the use of capital equipment, especially those that protect the environment for growing sugar, rice, other crops, and for the surrounding communities.

Environmental protection should therefore be a public responsibility shared with the private owners of the sugar and rice industries. In order to plan and ensure the viability of sugar lands and sugar production, some diversification in economic activities using sugar or rice lands may be needed to ensure a viable survival strategy for workers in both rice and sugar, and the local services supplied to the two agro-industries.

The industries that could spring up adjoining rice/sugar lands could concentrate on (1) dairy, (2) fresh-water fishing, brackish-water shrimping, (3) canned sugar in the form of ‘dulce-de-leche’ a milk candy variation of Guyana’s payra, Guyana’s canned rum-cake, Guyana’s cure-all brown sugar chocolate, eco-tourism on sugar as in Puerto Rico, and Indian rails for sugar and passengers within the economy.

The idea here is to strategically integrate the use of the existing rice and sugar lands into viable economic activities not tied to the price of world market sugar but to the strategic development of related industries, Finally, land use in sugar should be tied to overall environmental protection and value-added strategies for national economic development.

Yours faithfully,
Ganga Prasad Ramdas