Exactly one year ago, we noted in this space the proclivity of the Ministry of Agriculture to ignore the lesson of agriculture — that it takes time and effort to bring crops and livestock to “fruition”. Every October, it announces “Agriculture Month” with an accompanying “theme” that promises revolutionary change in a year.
Last year it was “Exploring new production frontiers: in pursuit of climate resilience”, while the year before, 2015, the first since it assumed office, it was “Exploiting our Strengths; advancing agriculture and social protection”. This year, we are informed, the theme is “Food Security and Hinterland Development: Our National Priority.”
The connection of agriculture and “social protection” in 2015 was rather ironic in retrospect, since, in that year, the Government unilaterally announced the closure of Wales sugar factory and the “amalgamation” of the estate with Uitvlugt Estate, twenty miles north on the Atlantic Coast.
Surely “social protection” was not augmented with the loss of employment by 1700 workers, among whom were several hundred cane-cutters, who were being herded back to the days of indentureship, when the worker had to unquestioningly obey the orders of the planters.
Ignoring the labour contract that forbid a worker being shifted to a worksite more than ten miles from his home, the cane-cutters were ordered to report to fields at Uitvlugt, at least 20 miles away, and are still in a state of limbo. The “amalgamation” of the estates appears stillborn, since a connecting road to transport cane from Wales to Uitvlugt is still only, at best, an aspiration.
In 2015, there was also another development (or lack thereof) in the agricultural sector, which belied the theme of “social protection”. The rice industry had received a shot in the arm back in 2009, after then President Jagdeo had negotiated a rice contract on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. The mega contract with Venezuela was in effect a barter of rice for oil, utilising the Petrocaribe Fund, at rice prices twice the world market rates. The contract had come to an end, but the new APNU/AFC Government did absolutely nothing to try to salvage a market then absorbing 200,000 tonnes of the 600,000 tonnes produced.
But the themes of 2016 and 2017 suggest there was a method to the Government’s apparent madness: the Government intends to abandon agriculture on the coastland and move it inland. Last year’s theme, “Exploring new production frontiers: in pursuit of climate resilience”, saw the Government giving much more attention to the PNC’s efforts back in the 1970s cooperative socialistic phase, to push agricultural development in the intermediate and hinterland savannahs.
And we cautioned: “It is our hope that Government is not giving up on the coastal agricultural “bird in the hand” in pursuit of its hinterland “bird in the bush,” as adumbrated in this year’s theme.
In its announcement of Agriculture Month last week, it noted: “The Government of Guyana’s 2015 Manifesto has indicated development of the hinterland as a priority, with implementation of policies for development of the Intermediate Savannahs, as well as the Rupununi Savannahs. The Intermediate Savannahs have long been considered as the next frontier for the nation’s agricultural development. In this vein, the Ministry of Agriculture has aligned its work programme to realise the Intermediate Savannahs as the next agricultural centre, and has also prioritised the implementation of policies for development of the Rupununi Savannahs.”
While there is unquestionably a need to develop the intermediate and interior savannahs, as was highlighted by the Minister and his high-level team on their visit to the Rupununi during the middle of last month, the challenges presented will take huge amounts of resources – technological, human and material. We suggest that we do not waste the hundreds of years of efforts by slaves, indentured and freemen to make the Guyana coastland among the best drained and irrigated lands on the planet.”
It might also appear to be politically motivated.
