…in food production
Some folks say, “Man shall not live by bread alone”. But that implies he gotta have bread, to begin with, no?!! If you wanna add cheese, then go ahead…but you gotta have bread!! And for that, you gotta have wheat…no two ways about it. While we may talk about “cassava bread” and “rice flour bread” they’re just not the same – as Burnham found out back in the day.
Faced with no foreign currency in an imploding economy because of his hare-brained “co-op utopia”, he restricted the importation of wheat. And lo and behold, the people who gotta have bread – in all its ethnic end varieties – like roti and bake etc – concluded bitterly that he’d banned flour just to spite the Opposition supporters. Now to be fair, his supporters probably depended on their “daily bread” more than PPP supporters!!
But anyhow, by then the Americans had rewarded him for betraying the national cause – by splitting the PPP and subsequently the Guyanese people – by erecting a flour mill to which they supplied wheat under a subsidized PL480 aid program. So when they cut off this source to rein him in on his foolish detour and frolic co-op escapade, he just couldn’t find money to enter wheat markets. He advised folks to start adding rice and cassava flour to their mix – but if it’s one thing you don’t do is mess around with people’s palates!! The shortage of flour was resisted far more than the curtailment of political rights!! Smugglers risked everything and trekked to Suriname and Venezuela to bring back flour for bread – but not guns for a revolution!!
Anyhow older folks from both sides of the aisle still remember Hoyte fondly for “bringing back flour”!! So, against that background, maybe it is quite understandable that ensuring that we have bread might be just another reason for the PPP Government to embark on the cultivation of wheat locally!! Yep…that right!! While most of us believe that rice is a temperate zone crop – and so it is, by and large – Durum wheat is one variety that’s been shown to be viable in the tropics – and in high humidity!!
Specific varieties of Durum wheat have been developed by the African-based “International Center for Research in the Dry Areas” (ICARDA) that can withstand constant 40C temperatures.
Over in neighbouring Brazil, Mauricio Lopes, president of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), boasted: “Already we’re growing wheat in tropical areas around Brasilia with the same quality as Argentine, Uruguayan or European wheat. But this requires a lot of irrigation, and in central Brazil, the cost is very high.”
As we launch a new flour mill mixer and expand NAMILCO, that’s what we gotta watch: our local costs vs imported costs!
…in foreign policy
Seems the only thing that gets our foreign policy establishment into high gear are threats from the Venezuelan front. But this has been an existential condition since 1962, Shouldn’t we have had a standing unit inside the Foreign Ministry; a Standing Parliamentary Committee, and a battalion of our crack GDF jungle troops keeping an eye out for the inevitable hijinks that are sure to come from that direction?? Even if it wasn’t Mad Maduro circling his wagons for his upcoming elections, we would’ve been aware of the Venezuelan Sindicato mafia that’s been infiltrating our Region 1.
Anyhow, it’s never too late – so your Eyewitness urges that the above suggestions be implemented ASAP. On the diplomatic front, while we understand that our brothers and sisters in Caricom – like Mia and Keith – gotta protect their national interests and make nice with Mad Maduro in the hope of new Petrocaribe oil – and for Keith, that Dragon gas field – we gotta remind them that they gotta play the long game.
Which includes Guyana.
…in justice??
Mankind long ago moved from “an eye for an eye” to notions of justice that incorporate the “greater good”. But what kind of justice frees a mother – who murdered her own daughter – after 13 years?
