A somewhat muted debate on the subject of food security which had for a while been accentuated by the advent of oil as a factor in the Guyana economy is beginning. Up until now there have been no threats, as far as this newspaper can tell, to the national focus on agriculture nor has there arisen any reason to believe (again as far as we can tell) that the country’s farming community will now abandon the pursuit that has kept their livelihoods and the country’s economy going from time immemorial and suddenly run off in search of some Local Content ‘pipe dream’ in the oil & gas sector.
That would be an error not just because flirtations with new economic pursuits always have their teething problems and often do not fructify as expected, but also because the option to the continued pursuit of a viable agricultural sector in tandem with such returns as accrue from the oil and gas sector helps to protect the country against such external shocks as might arise from what, down the road and from all indications, are likely to be increased food prices. Here, it is instructive to take our cue from other countries in the CARICOM region, which, on account of the lack of a robust agricultural sector, are now, in some instances, paying ‘through their noses,’ so to speak, for imported foods both to satisfy the local dinner tables and to meet the taste requirements of visitors to those countries.
For all our economic challenges, over the years, relatively cheap, locally cultivated foods, have been a blessing and one might add that in more recent years our food security situation had been strengthened by the emergence of a vibrant agro-processing sector, the products from which are successfully challenging for space on a local market that has traditionally evinced a taste for imported food flavourings and condiments.
During a recent interview with an official of Nand Persaud and Company, the official with whom we spoke waxed decidedly optimistic about the prospects for the future of the rice industry. This augurs well not only for the consolidation of our domestic food security ambitions but in terms of what we know to be the global and largely unsatisfied demand for food.
Even if there is no reason at this juncture to believe that farmers and agro-processors will suddenly and inexplicably make a bee line for some alternative pursuit, we cannot be arrogant enough to think that food security challenges will never touch our shores. Certainly, as more oil money begins to circulate in the country’s economy and more business options materialise, it may well become necessary for the message associated with the wisdom of ‘sticking to the plot’ as far as agriculture is concerned, to become mandatory. The way forward here, of course, is not to wait for that moment to come to invest in technologically upgrading the agriculture and agro-processing sector in ways that make it both more appealing and more profitable.
Contextually, one of the events on which we report in this week’s issue of the Stabroek Business is last week’s Berlin Food Security forum (at which more than seventy countries were represented) and which provided a timely reminder of the acute nature of prevailing global food insecurity. Occurrences like these must serve as reminders for Guyana particularly in circumstances where the prospects of an oil economy might render us vulnerable to beginning to look our existing ‘Gift Horse’ (our agricultural/agro processing sector) in the mouth. Here, one cannot stress too strongly the strategic importance of utilising earnings from the oil & gas sector to create a powerhouse agricultural sector which, while it is unlikely to match the returns from oil & gas will, in the longer term, match if not exceed that sector for its contribution to our national well-being and to global good.
