Dear Editor,
It is obvious that your writer/reporter, Mr Mervyn Williams, [Ed note: Mr Mervyn Williams is neither a writer nor a reporter for this newspaper] and most notably yourself are completely oblivious to the Grow More Food campaign, its objectives and achievements despite our informing you of same. The convenient amnesia on the campaign, market prices before the campaign started and whilst the campaign was being executed and the campaign’s achievements, is most disturbing for a newspaper that promotes itself as being one which is objective and reports the facts.
The stories carried by Stabroek News including the letter from Mr Williams on October 25 are, as mentioned earlier, a complete distortion of the Grow More Food campaign. Editor, after reviewing the letter by Mr Williams I would like to inform you again that the Grow More Food campaign is completely different from the Feed, Clothe and House the nation exercise implemented by the late LFS Burnham, and for the purpose of the readers and Mr Williams I will outline in summary the Grow More Campaign which has seen Guyana being one of the two countries being credited as achieving the Millennium Development Goal as it relates to food security and the eradication of hunger. [Ed note: Mr Williams did not refer in his letter to the Feed Clothe and House campaign, but only to Forbes Burnham’s ‘Grow More Food’ campaign.]
The main objective of the present Grow More Food campaign which contributes significantly to the agricultural diversification strategy is to expand production and marketing opportunities so as to increase and diversify incomes of resource-poor producers. It’s a holistic programme that works through the strengthening of organizations and institutional service providers to ensure the stability and sustainability of the developmental effort.
The specific objectives are to:
● offer support and assistance to resource poor producers and rural households;
● improve rural incomes by directing improved production activities, towards existing marketing opportunities;
● strengthen linkages between rural producers and service providers involved in the production and diversification efforts; and
● integrate improved technologies in the production and marketing supply chain for agricultural and non-agricultural based enterprises.
In order to attain its stated objectives, the campaign employs a strategy based on four main pillars:
● market-driven production;
● forging strong linkages between production and marketing;
● applying an integrated framework for the support services involved in production and marketing; and
● engaging in capacity-building to ensure sustainability.
Under the market-driven pillar of the strategy, reliance is being placed on market signals to inform decisions, plans and programmes of production. Market information is an important plank of this strategy. Market information, whether local, regional or extra-regional is being used to plan and inform production that would be targeted towards specific markets. In effecting such a strategy, this campaign addresses the building of strategic alliances with institutions and organizations involved in trade and marketing in the targeted market sectors.
By forging links between production and marketing, this campaign allows producers to take advantage of market opportunities in market segments such as:
► extra-regional markets, especially in cities in the USA, Canada and the UK where there are large resident Guyanese/West Indian communities;
► the regional tourist market and supermarket shoppers that are growing in sophistication;
► the national market, in order to meet the consumption needs of locals and visitors and to substitute for imports of vegetables, meats, and processed products; and
► the domestic and regional processing industries, in order to meet the requirements for raw material used in the processing of fruits, tuber crops, etc.
This campaign links producers and /or producer groups to buyers that serve the above-mentioned market segments by assisting the respective parties to consolidate their existing relationships and to establish and build new ones.
In encouraging producers and buyers to serve the respective markets, the building of trust and confidence between buyers and sellers has been assisted by improving the customer and personal relationship skills of both parties.
With respect to the integration of the support services for production and marketing, the campaign has sought to remove constraints and provide support in order to promote increased production for specific markets. This is being done through the establishment of Business Facilitation Centres (BFCs) and ITC centres that are strategically located in the targeted communities. The centres serve as hubs to conduct agri-business. They serve as centres of information for producers and/or producer groups, meeting points for the providers of support services in their interface with one another and with producers and groups.
Capacity building, the fourth pillar of the strategy, is based on the recognition that the support service providers are not as strong as we would like them to be and are sometimes limited in their outreach work and operations, with the resultant lack of sustainability of their impact. As a result, capacity building is being undertaken at the following levels:
● Institutions in the public sector that are involved in the provision of services for the production and marketing of agricultural and non-agricultural enterprises are being supported and assisted to enhance their effectiveness and delivery. The GoG and IDB funded US$ 22.9 million Agricultural Export Diversification programme is premised on extensive studies done by Chilean consultants.
How naïve can you be to use the non-responsiveness of some farmers to submit their production data to state that this “must be the starkest evidence available to the ministry that farmers are disillusioned with the prospects that this campaign offers” (SN editorial, October 25). Maybe you would have concluded differently had you known that Trinidad’s NAMDEVCO has embarked on a similar campaign (after Guyana) as stated by their Minister of Agriculture at the recently held COTED meeting in Grenada. The non-responsiveness of some of our farmers can be interpreted in many ways, one of which could be that they are doing well and do not want that kind of information be public.
It is even more unfathomable, Editor, that rather than you supporting the Grow More Food campaign and encouraging Caribbean governments to open their markets to Guyanese and other Caricom countries’ produce, you chose to ask, “why proceed on a possibly futile exercise?” The Government of Guyana firmly believes in Caricom and its objectives, and will not give up on its efforts to forge greater intra-regional trade.
Again, Editor, when one reads the article on the packaging facilities and your editorial comments on the same, it is mind-boggling that ‘intelligent’ writers cannot see or do not want to see the developments being done by the Ministry of Agriculture to support farmers. Rather than encourage farmers to make use of the facilities that have been put in place to support their
activities, you choose to criticize the government for its perceived limited use. Needless to say the facilities that the ministry has put in place should have been put in place by the private sector, but the Ministry of Agriculture, realizing that farmers will initially need support, has put these facilities in place. Maybe your next article will be that the ministry or GMC should get into the production of crops. You seem to misunderstand the role of government in today’s world.
Editor, we are encouraged by your interest in the work of the Ministry of Agriculture and its programmes; however, we invite you and your reporter(s) to be a bit more objective in your writing.
Yours faithfully,
George Jervis
Deputy Permanent Secretary (Admin)
Ministry of Agriculture
