In the course of the recent engagement between Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha and Canada’s High Commissioner to Guyana Mark Berman during which – as reported in this issue of the Stabroek Business – the two talked up possibilities for the strengthening of relations between the two countries, Minister Mustapha, who is the serving Chairman of the Ministerial Task Force for advancing the agriculture agenda of the region, reportedly alluded to the current focus of the Task Force on producing a document on food security highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each member state, for submission to CARICOM Heads.
Minister Mustapha is a newcomer to the Task Force and cannot therefore be held accountable for its operating agenda and how it has fared over the years in that regard. That being said, Guyana has long been regarded and looked to, as the de facto lead country in the region insofar as the growth of its agriculture sector is concerned. It might be said, further, that at one time or another, high officials of the Government of Guyana, not least former President and serving Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo, have played a leading role in the articulation of policies linked to a collective initiative to build a solid regional agriculture foundation. It would be a considerable understatement to pronounce that little if anything has come of those pursuits in terms of fashioning a cohesive policy, over the years.
Interest in agriculture in the region derives, particularly, from its food security obligations. The immediate contemporary concern, however, reposes in the dilemma of having gotten itself into a position where it has reportedly, run up a food import bill of around US$5 billion. Unfortunately, the universal acknowledgement that such a circumstance is economically unsustainable has elicited no known meaningful action to reduce the extent of that food bill. One should point out here that the high food import bill facing several countries in the region does not apply to Guyana, given the combination of its relatively small population and the historical performance of its agricultural sector. Mind you, the fairly frequent assertion by high officials of government that Guyana enjoys a circumstance of food security is a misnomer that should be corrected with due haste least complacency regarding the need to become secure turns out to be our undoing.
But it is with the emergency circumstance now confronting regional agriculture and perhaps, more immediately, with Minister Mustapha’s recent disclosure that the Task Force’s current preoccupation is with the creation of a document on food security that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each member state, which, upon finalisation, will have to be put before CARICOM Heads, that this editorial is primarily concerned.
Here, one should note that the thick crust of bureaucratic entombment in which the issue of regional food security finds itself comes at a time when the production of agricultural and agro-processed goods in abundance is hinged, first, to the many reports (including one reported in this newspaper very recently) about the nutrition-related challenges confronting the region, arising mainly out of what we consume. The second issue – the high cost of food imports – has already been mentioned, though to that must now be added the additional food security challenges arising out of the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and the significantly increased global demand for healthy foods.
It is fair, we believe, to restate, that the condition of unacceptable sloth and absurdity that attends the pace of progress towards the realisation of a condition of a high level of food security in the region cannot be placed on the shoulders of the country’s Minister of Agriculture, though there can be no question than that the Caribbean Community, as a regional institution (and its member countries), have pontificated over the issue of food production and food security for decades and that it is they who must carry the can for taking us on a journey to nowhere. One might even justifiably go as far as saying that the recognition which Guyana enjoys as the unquestioned front runner in agriculture in the region bestows upon it the burden of a greater responsibility than the others.
