…Agri Month?
Well, if it’s October, and this being Guyana, it must be “Agriculture Month” — which your Eyewitness believes has been commemorated for at least a quarter of a century! And if you think about it, it is rather ironic – since agriculture’s the raison d’etre for the existence of our country. As such, Agriculture Month should’ve been commemorated since 1621 or thereabouts!! But better late than never, and as is customary with all this commemoration of “Days” and “Weeks” and “Months”, there’s gotta be a theme. Last year it was “Accelerating Vision 25 by 2025: Investing in Agri-business and Food Security”, and the year before it was: “Championing food security through innovation, investment and resilience”; and this year, it’s “Transforming Tomorrow: Championing Food Security through Innovation and Technology”. You get the idea?? The idea is that agriculture’s now being placed on a whole new plateau.
Now, this might seem a bit strange with our new designation as a “Petro state” – where money’s literally gushing out from under the Atlantic!! However, we know that unlike the Mid East, where there’s an ocean of oil swirling around under their desert sands, ours is a mere puddle in comparison – which will run out in a few decades!! And your Eyewitness won’t even discuss the move out of fossil fuels to mitigate climate change – since that’s just a mamaguy by the “developed countries” that became developed due to burning fossil fuels!!
So, the Govt’s clear about hedging our bets by exploiting what the economists call our “comparative advantage” in agriculture. What with the vast acreage of land we have available, not only on the coastland, but in our interior savannahs. And as a land of many waters, the challenge of irrigation that’s a hurdle to most countries is merely an engineering challenge to divert waters from our rivers and creeks. From what we can glean by the Agriculture Month “themes”, the new focus is to bring our agriculture into the 21st century – away from the backbreaking, unremitting labour it was during and after slavery and indentureship.
The focus on addressing “food security” signals the existing and growing global markets for a world where climate change and depleted groundwater reservoirs are reducing food production, even in countries that were once self-sufficient. Immediately, there’s the goal of reducing Caricom’s US$6 billion annual food import bill by 25% by next year – 25 by 25!! – so markets aren’t a problem. The challenge will be manpower, and we can see this is being addressed by increased mechanization and logistics.
Producing and supplying food to the world demands an intricate supply chain involving flash freezing, storage, processing, phytosanitary measures etc.
It’s a brave new world for agriculture for our post-oil future!!
…placating Venezuela
The accusation by the Opposition: that Jagdeo, when President, offered the Venezuelans a “passage to the Atlantic” in our North West in lieu of their claim to Essequibo has now been proven false. But how about the interview Burnham gave to Alfredo Peña, from the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional, on March 1 1985 – from the transcript released by our Foreign Service.
“PEÑA: But right now, the question is being raised – that same kind of proposals that were raised under the Perez government – of a solution; that is, Venezuela’s exit to the Atlantic. Foreign Minister Morales Paul has said that Venezuela would have to have a portion of land and sea for itself.
BURNHAM: We can DISCUSS it. But having an entry into the Caribbean is quite different from owning the land bordering the Caribbean.”
What this shows is Burnham also CONSIDERED the “passage into the Caribbean” – but that doesn’t mean he would’ve gone along.
In diplomacy, one allows all sorts of options on the table. It doesn’t mean you accept them all, Opposition wankers!!
…a change
Last Monday night, the US VP candidates had their debate. Compared to the Trump-Harris debate, this one was almost a “love in”!! These fellas gotta get with the (dog eat dog) programme!!
