President Irfaan Ali is very much ‘on point’ in his remark earlier this month about “a lot more” needing to be done if the region “is to reduce its food importation costs whilst , simultaneously, boosting its agricultural sector.
Whilst, over the years, Guyana has never ceased to trumpet its credentials as the ‘food basket’ of the Caribbean those noises were unable to stave off the revelation realized through last year’s survey conducted by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to the effect that nearly 4.1 million people or 57 percent of the population now face food insecurity.
Prior to that revelation the region, including Guyana, was very much preoccupied with blowing ‘false’ notes on its food security ‘trumpet,’ the weaknesses in the case that it was seeking to make manifested in the various attempts to genuinely enhance the region’s food security bona fides, manifested in the ‘damp squibs’ that were earlier being offered up – with Guyana very much at the forefront of these false alarms.
Whilst it is President Ali’s predecessors, overwhelmingly, that must shoulder much of the responsibility’s food security ‘false alarms’ the incumbent, himself, must be mindful that he not extend himself by too far through pronouncements like “much has been achieved,” a remark attributed to him recently.
The truth of the matter here (and this is a reality that His Excellency must face) is that in matters pertaining to serious developments in the region our political leaders, far too often, embrace what one might call the “Christmas blow, blow” approach, a ‘formula’ that employs generous doses of boisterous assurances that almost always fall flat on their faces. This very much applies in those instances when regional food security ‘undertakings’ have been churned out.
We are, it appears, in that zone again. For example, whilst, these days, the region’s 25×2025 reduced extra-regional food imports ‘slogan’ is being thrown into just about every food security discourse in the region, these days, whenever account is taken of the still overwhelming dependence on bringing food in from outside region, particularly by those countries in the region with less than reassuring agricultural credentials, the question surely arises as to whether 25×2025 may well not be, in reality, much more a hedging of bets rather than a sure thing, at this stage, Further, while in the circumstances every red-blooded Caribbean man and woman ought to be rooting for the success of the Regional Food Security Terminal being driven largely by Guyana and Barbados, there is every likelihood that in the circumstances the region could well drift into the realm of jitters if the progress report on the Food Terminal which the Stabroek Business has been calling for over quite a few months, does not materialize sooner rather than later.
The point that is being made here is that the outcomes of both undertakings and promises which the Caribbean has made in the matter of regional food security, not least the aforementioned initiatives undertaken by various political administrations have mostly ‘fallen through,’ so to speak, which is precisely why the Stabroek Business has opted for a wait and see posture in the matter of the likely outcomes of October’s Caribbean Agriculture Week event.
There can be little doubt that the gap between undertaking and outcome in the matter of Caribbean Food Security has found us standing on the deficit side, a circumstance which, of late, we have been bluntly reminded of by reputable institutions, including the United Nations. Which is precisely why whenever the region begins to blow its trumpet about high-level undertakings designed to address the issue of regional food security, the antennae of the people of the region ‘go up.’
The same message is now being sent, repeatedly, to Caribbean governments. High-soundings entombed in fancily ‘communiques’ will no longer ‘cut it.’ In the matter of iron-clad assurances on regional food security the governments of the region, particularly in those countries that are positioned to do more, have to deliver much more than the prevailing diet of noises.
Making stirring pronouncements and, afterwards, simply moving, will no longer ‘cut it’ in a region that is, even now, seeing and feeling the harsh reality of food insecurity. This should be the focus of next month’s CAW event in the Bahamas.
