This is not the first occasion on which the Stabroek Business has made a pointed editorial comment on Guyana’s failure, up until now, to take any sort of initiative to speak of, to mark the United Nations-designated International Year of Fruits and Vegetables (IYFV). We do so out of concern that given the position of prominence which the country occupies as an unquestioned leader in fruit and vegetable cultivation in the Caribbean, we may well be running the risk of wasting an opportunity to further cement that coveted place.
It will be recalled that while the local office of the Food & Agriculture Organization in Guyana had, much earlier in the year, announced its preparedness to “work with stakeholders within the food system to raise awareness about the importance of fruits and vegetables for human nutrition, food security and health,” in pursuit of the goals of IYFG, it took the Ministry of Agriculture almost a full four months into the year to announce a national programme for IYFV. It was during that launch that the Agriculture Minister was reported as saying that government would continue to implement policies and programmes to promote climate resilient and sustainable production of fruits and vegetables. Up until now nothing that we know of has been heard beyond that reported commitment.
Next month this time, we would have been a few days away from the end of the first half of 2021 and still, as far as we are aware, nothing of note has been done to mark what, for Guyana, given its particular circumstance, ought to be a ground-breaking year. Indeed, as the Stabroek Business pointed out previously, this might even be that long-awaited opportunity for Guyana to spearhead a wider regional initiative to raise the profile of the Caribbean, globally, as a fruit and vegetable-producing region.
Interestingly enough, the objectives of IYFV, particularly those that have to do with the nutrition and health benefits of fruits and vegetables, ought to strike a resonant chord with government and with Guyana as a whole given the very recent disclosure by the Caribbean Public Health Association (CARPHA) that if the Caribbean – which we assume includes Guyana – is to rid itself of the dubious distinction of having the highest mortality rate in the Americas resulting from cardiovascular diseases, it would do well to, among other things, pay closer attention to its fruit and vegetable intake.
One would have thought, further, that there might have been a no more appropriate time than now for the Ministry of Agriculture to roll out at least a few high-profile public events to mark IYFV. While it is true that the protocols associated with efforts to rein in the pandemic would have placed restraints on the expansiveness of an IYFV programme, the Ministry of Agriculture, surely, is adequately equipped to undertake modest initiatives at the community level to further promote the cultivation of fruits and vegetables and, perhaps in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, stage some media-driven, virtual and actual events to promote increased fruit and vegetable consumption. Again, nothing happened. Nor have we, since the ‘launch’ of the national IYFV programme, been further apprised of the arrangements for the planned competitions involving schoolchildren.
As has already been mentioned it would have been decidedly to the country’s credit if IYFV could have been used by the Ministry of Agriculture, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health as a rallying point for re-focussing on fruits and vegetables as an integral part of the national diet which, conceivably, might even have helped to nurture entrepreneurial pursuits that have to do with new, creative ways of preparing fruit and vegetables for consumption.
IYFV may, as well, have been used as an opportunity (perhaps it is not entirely too late for this particular initiative) for attempts to be made at seeking new regional and extra-regional markets for local fruit allied with planned initiatives to improve variety, quality, and volumes of fruit produced locally. Allied to this, of course, may well have been the possibility of applying an even further measure of creativity to further rolling back the frontiers of the country’s agro-processing sector.
In the real world it may well not have been possible to accomplish all of these goals, though, truth be told, it never seemed, based on the content of its programme and the shocking lateness of its promulgation, that the Ministry of Agriculture had ever cultivated the mindset to plan and execute a meaningful collection of initiatives to suitably mark IYFG. Perhaps there may be some measure of retrieval in what is left of 2021.
