In a lengthy defence of the Grow More Food campaign by way of a letter in the September 29th edition of Stabroek News following a series of hard-hitting reports in this newspaper on farmers’ complaints, the Head of the Guyana Marketing Corporation Mr Nizam Hassan asserted that there has been much success.
He reeled off a list of projects, trotted out select statistics and made the usual broad statements about extension services and increased investments in drainage and irrigation.
Unfortunately, nothing that Mr Hassan said changes the reality on the ground to wit that farmers are in the main despondent, have not seen increased revenues, have no access to higher priced markets, remain at the mercy of middlemen, suffer spoilage of goods and allow rotting of produce that is unprofitable, are disinterested in exporting and have problems with farm-to-market roads, among other grievances.
Such has been the poor preparation for this campaign by the Agriculture Ministry and the GMC that Mr Hassan felt no qualms about asserting that “The government has recognized that markets are essential for farmers since domestic production exceeds domestic needs. As such, the Guyana Marketing Corpora-tion (GMC) is currently undertaking Market Identi-fication Studies to identify even more new markets and new products that have export potential beside the 4Ps (pepper, pumpkin, plantain and pineapple). These studies will build on the existing market information that is available at the GMC thus enabling Guyana to increase its non-traditional exports in the near future.” Unfortunately this is what the government should have relied on before plunging headlong into an across-the-board campaign that has seen everyone planting the same thing and flooding the markets, sending prices lower and leading to the incredibly saddening spectacle of produce left rotting in fields. Investments of hundreds of millions of dollars should have been underpinned by studies that determined which crops, in which areas and destined to which markets. This was not done.
Mr Hassan further revealed the disengagement of many farmers from this process when he lamented that despite constant pleas for production information many have not returned forms issued to them. He said that apart from visits and phone calls to farmers requesting information “more than 4,000 return postage-paid letters (were) sent to farmers in the first half of 2010. Less than 100 forms were returned”. This must be the starkest evidence available to the ministry that farmers are disillusioned with the prospects that this campaign offers.
Nevertheless, Mr Hassan ploughed on, blithely referring to many young entrepreneurs who have started small businesses packaging items such as plantain and cassava chips. Further, he said many individuals had started processing products that would have been dumped and this had translated into pepper sauce, achar and other condiments being sold. Even if the evidence of this was available it would not equate with the expected output of this grand campaign and begs the question of what would happen when the inputs that were donated to farmers to get them started ended. Mr Hassan nevertheless used this purported burst of activity to contend that by the end of last year agro-processing exports had totalled US$3.4M and he rattled off a list of items. That list however contained copra, coconut oil, heart of palm and pineapple chunks much of which are exported by larger companies and in one case a foreign-owned company. Much of this activity also pre-dated the grow more food campaign and is not the fruit of the small farmers who are the main targets of this drive.
Mr Hassan then alighted upon another well-known obstacle that the government has been unable to circumnavigate – access to Caricom markets – despite President Jagdeo being a member of this club of leaders for the last 11 years and spearheading an eponymously named agricultural initiative. Said he “It must also be noted that the Government of Guyana is constantly seeking new markets for agricultural products; however, this is not an easy task as our own sister states are proving very tough markets to access… Amazingly in a free trade zone within Caricom, we have to seek to establish protocols with countries to trade in specific products and this comes with a cost, as we have to bring their agricultural officials to visit the farms on a regular basis”. He also spoke of the application of non-tariff barriers and getting farmers to comply with the product requirements for overseas markets.
It is unfathomable that this government would embark on such an ambitious campaign without a viable plan to access the Caricom market being fully aware of the perils and treachery associated with it.
Why proceed on a possibly futile exercise with farmers when it is clear that there is no immediate solution and that there are ingrained problems. More and more on the ground there is evidence that this campaign is producing paltry results. On a recent visit to the Parika pack house which was intended to provide pre-export facilities to many farmers, Stabroek News found it empty. The same was the case with the Sophia packaging centre. These centres are essentially serving a limited subset of farmers and narrow interests. Had this grow more food campaign been humming there would have been visible signs of the surplus being shipped out to destinations across the region.
Yet, there should have been a more considered way forward and thankfully the ministry recently benefited from two illuminating insights.
The first was delivered in early October at a conference on the Regional Policy for Food and Nutrition Security where Mr Sergio Garcia, the Caricom Pro-gramme Manager – Agriculture referred to the series of food initiatives that have languished in the region including the Jagdeo Initiative and argued that “These initiatives have had limited, if any, success, however, because they have been prepared and executed in isolation from other policies. Actions taken have thus been sparse, diffuse… and uncoordinated. Moreover, few of them have been translated into operational instruments with regional core funding for concrete action programmes specifically addressing the unifying and cross-cutting synergistic issue of food and nutrition security”. This is one of the major defects of the current Grow More Food campaign.
The second insight was derived from a report in the Trinidad Guardian of October 18th where Port of Spain has embarked on a co-ordinated campaign to boost production, push up incomes and find markets for farmers. The report said in part that the Ministry of Food Production had devised a national plan for the cassava industry. Cassava was one of 10 commodities selected under the agri-business plan and it was chosen because of its “its agronomic advantages, high yield potential, nutritional benefit, drought resistance, low praedial larceny and the capacity to be left in the ground after maturity.”
It added that in line with this the agri-business association had initiated a contract production programme with farmers and commenced the output of a variety of cassava products and that bakeries and fast food outlets would be encouraged to buy into the line of products. Bakeries were to be offered grated cassava which had already been tested with good results. Moreover the emphasis on cassava was being used to inspire a shift away from the purchase of potato fries. Pointing out that Trinidad imports 11,000 tonnes per annum of the potato fries the report quoted an official as saying that if efforts at import substitution were modestly successful, the ensuing market would be enough to justify a seven-fold increase in the production of cassava.
The agri-business association was now seeking to ratchet up production from 10,000 pounds of cassava per acre to 25,000. Further, to reduce the cost of production and the price of cassava, a cassava industry development committee had initiated a series of technological interventions. The cassava plan was an absolute revelation in terms of the integration from farm to market and the considered planning that has gone into it. This is the kind of thinking Messrs Hassan and Robert Persaud have to assure the public has been factored into this presently unstructured Grow More Food campaign. Ironically, on the West Demerara cassava has been left to rot in fields because of low prices. Thus far there has been no evidence of deep thinking in the local campaign to make a successful go of at least one or two products that can reach premium-priced markets and aid in cutting the food import bill. The government has to get cracking otherwise millions of dollars will be frittered away on this ill-devised campaign.
