The “Roop” Economic Corner...Agriculture – Let’s look South for help

The “Roop” Economic Corner…Agriculture – Let’s look South for help

Aug 22, 2008 Features / Columnists

Peter R. Ramsaroop, MBA

INTRODUCTION:
Brazil, Guyana’s next door neighbour, once again hit the world news this week with their massive investment in agriculture.

They have embarked on a quiet revolution to maximize their economic wellbeing through agriculture, with active support to their family-run farms, in their huge agricultural areas, with a superb climate, to enable Brazil to soon become the agricultural superpower, yes superpower.

We are just next door; we could tie into the huge market Brazil already serves. Recently, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, told his farmers “Concerns about food prices and shortages around the world, offered them an exceptional opportunity.” (BBC News 18 August 2008).

President Lula also said “we have more Chinese people eating, we have more Indians eating, we have more Africans eating, and we have a lot more Brazilians eating. Without any arrogance or self-importance, we Brazilians need to confront what for others is a crisis, as an extraordinary opportunity to truly transform ourselves into the granary of the world, as many people have long predicted.”

“World demand for food today is one billion tonnes, and Brazil produces 150 million tonnes.”
President Lula believes his country can become the food basket to the world. We have talked about Guyana as the breadbasket for the Caribbean for decades and have yet to even get to feeding ourselves.

THE JAGDEO INITIATIVE
Our small seed program that we call the Jagdeo Initiative lacks the emphasis Brazil is placing on Agriculture. Planting in our backyard is a great initiative for us locals to have food, but look at the opportunity we are giving away by being so small-minded.

We need to plant hectares of produce to tie into the market Brazil has already secured. During the last 10 years, Brazil has heavily concentrated on agricultural production and businesses. Its 2008 estimate for EXTERNAL SALES of agricultural products is around US$74 billion dollars, an
increase of 26% on 2007.

I have not seen what our numbers for Guyana are. I wrote in my Sunday Column July 13th on the Topic “Treat or Farmers Fairly – the Roop Initiative” that outlines approaches that can expand this initiative to develop macro-plans for planting on large scale.

FOR US TO LEARN
Brazil is employing technology, sustainable farming techniques, and training for their people to enable these spectacular achievements. They are providing an attractive FREE ENTERPRISE investment climate, with logistics and infrastructure.

Import duties on farm equipment, seeds, and fertilizer were slashed as an incentive. Brazilian agricultural growth is through “Entrepreneurship, good science, access to good land, and good weather”.

“THE GUYANA INITIATIVE”
Let us move from the Jagdeo or the Roop Initiative to a “Guyana Initiative”. Can we now imagine Guyana’s agricultural economic development possibilities, after reading what our next door neighbour, Brazil has accomplished in the last 10 years?

We are a producer of sugar cane; this needs to be expanded significantly for us to help Brazil to supply ethanol to the world. Brazil plants 7 million Hectares of sugar cane and may go to 20 million in order to supply the world with ethanol.

We must first treat our sugar workers right and have incentives for them to stay on the job, not just by increases in pay, but moving them from cutlass to machines to cut the cane.

Can we imagine the immense possibilities for Guyana? Guyana like Brazil is rich in land, and water, to enable a huge economic transformation. We need our Government to implement actions with attractive incentives, under free enterprise principles and practices, to make Guyana, the “Green Anchor” of the Caribbean.

President Lula has offered us technologies, he has built the bridge to Guyana, what more could we want, let us take the man up on his offer and get on with moving our country forward in this area that we can excel in.

CONCLUSION
We must move from our small-minded thinking on agriculture to where we have the right investments coming on for logistics, for infrastructure and for technology and land development. Our nation can multiply our actual production in the next five years if we focus on systematically developing this sector with measurable results.

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