The “Roop” Column – Treat our Farmers Fairly – The Roop Initiative

Jul 13, 2008 Features / Columnists

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OVERVIEW:
We keep hearing about the Jagdeo Initiative that describes a strategic framework for the sector but little is said about how we will ensure our farmers’ success.  We have great slogans such as “food security” yet when farmers try to access lands and seeds or financing, they are given the red tape.   

What is still evident is that mainstream farmers have not really increased in their standards of living since the 1960s.  Many still live in shanty houses and still earn about the same they made many years ago.   Many still rush to the markets trying to sell their products, and travel with their fresh produce in substandard transportation methods.

OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza told Caricom Heads that the Jagdeo Initiative on Agriculture is critical to dealing with the Region’s food crisis though the problem is not one of a food shortage rather that people cannot keep up with the rate of price increases.  He needs a lesson on supply and demand. 

Prices can come down if we grow more in larger quantities, increase technology into the sector such as greenhouses, and provide a better logistics chain in getting the produce to both local and international markets. Therefore, while the top officials get attention for their slogans, the farmers are the ones at the bottom that are left out of the equation.

INTERNATIONAL VIEW:
The Jamaican Gleaner newspaper editorial this week ripped into President Jagdeo’s lack of economic vision for his country, quoting, “he believes in the developmental state, which plays the leading role in economic development. Like his predecessors, he does not believe in markets and regards private enterprise as a form of theft. The extreme poverty of Guyana, a vast land blessed with abundant resources of every kind, is testimony to bad economic policy. Not content to preside over the steady impoverishment of his people (those who have not yet migrated) he now proposes the implosion of the few remaining economic activities.”

Without a free market economic vision for our country (where we overhaul the entire system including the burdensome tax noose around our necks of the 16% VAT and 33% Income tax and so many other taxes that stifle our economy) we can never experience progress.

PAY ISSUES
Rice and sugar workers’ pay scale based on inflation is actually less than it was thirty years ago. Sugar workers wake up at wee hours in the morning to go to work; wives wake up at the same wee hours to help prepare their meals.

Workers destroy their backs and hands, cutting cane for 10-12 hours per day yet they live in substandard housing, disconnected from their home and family. 

One has to wonder if we still have some form of slavery or indentured servants given that they just can’t get a better life no matter how hard they work.  

LABOUR LAWS
It has become clear that the time has come to reconsider our labour laws to ensure that farm workers are treated fairly.  We have seen the complaints and multiple strikes now and over the last year on issues such as this and cost of living. 

We have to ensure that there are laws against unfair practices and better working conditions. We have to stop the workers from cutting cane with a cutlass and move them to driving machines that make their work more efficient and gain skills for other industries.  These are basic protections for these workers and we shouldn’t leave these workers unprotected.

UPGRADE OUR MARKETS TO MORE FARMER MARKETS
All the venues where our farmers have to sell their produce such as Bourda, Mon Repos and others are in a deplorable state with substandard facilities even though government has awarded contracts in some of these areas. 

The produce we have to buy is not in clean environments yet we the consumers must still purchase from the farmers who have worked hard to get to market. 

KEY STEPS FOR GOVERNMENT TO TAKE TOWARDS BEING A MORE DIVERSIFIED “GREEN ANCHOR” COUNTRY.
1.  TAX rebate for 2007 VAT money – Each tax paying citizen should receive a minimum of $10,000- 25,000 VAT rebate checks, given we paid more than we should have in 2007 and also are still being raped with our taxes. That money can go into farming.

2.  TOTAL MOBILIZATION to help more farmers and rural communities to farm and create jobs.

3.  Help farmers to make the transition to ORGANIC produce, which is much more profitable.

4.  Help farmers to produce and market, especially to North America, ORGANIC Blackberries, Strawberries, Mangoes, Papayas, Pineapples, Watermelons, Sapodillas, and Passion Fruit

CONCLUSION:
Food security is one of the main topics in Caricom.  The Jagdeo Agriculture Initiative clearly lacks a focus on how to improve the farmers’ environment.  We have the means to be the green anchor of the region but must first take care of our own. 

We cannot allow our farmers to be poor and have to protest in order to get better wages and working conditions or their farmlands to be destroyed when it is their means of survival.   For us to get to the point where we can be the bread basket of the Caribbean, we must first put in initiatives to improve the welfare of our farmers.

The new economy of agricultural foodstuff production is upon us in the region; we must choose the path to re-invent from traditional crops to truly becoming the “Green Anchor” of the Caribbean. 

We cannot have our own in poverty while trying to provide for others. Let’s change our approach about how we treat our farmers.

Email: [email protected] 
Website: www.visionguyana.com

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