BIG MAN’S JOB ON A YOUNG BOY’S SHOULDER

Jan 28, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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There were many who felt that he was too young and inexperienced to have been handed such an important portfolio. There were many who felt that it was reckless of the President to have assigned to a new minister the huge responsibility for the agricultural sector.
I felt otherwise. I held out great hope for Mr. Robert Montgomery Persaud when he took over the portfolio of Minister of Agriculture.
I felt that with his personality and his hands-on approach to dealing with problems that he would revitalize agriculture in Guyana. I hoped that through quick decision and his ability to raise funding for the sector that he would become a huge success.
He started out positively and the initial impressions from the farming community were good. But there was always one thing that bothered me and which I thought could be distracting. He and his ministry were having too high a profile in the State media. This always leads to problems because with high profiles also comes a great deal of criticism and this could result in the loss of focus.
When Robert Persaud took over the agricultural ministry, this column warned him that he should keep his eyes on the ball. This column said that he should pay keen attention to the Guyana Sugar Corporation and to the conservancy.
This column also questioned why the government was waiting on the Venezuelans to dredge the Abary and Mahaica Rivers along with the East Demerara Water Conservancy.
The government should have been on a daily basis knocking at the doors of the Venezuelan government.
The Ministry of Agriculture allowed itself to be distracted. The Minister allowed himself to be caught up with a Grow More Food Campaign, not realizing that in order to increase food production, the fundamentals of water management had to be in place.
He can share out all the seeds he wants, he can call on persons to increase production and to grow more food, but unless the problems of drainage are addressed and addressed satisfactorily, any increase in cultivation is likely to be destroyed once floods occur.
Rice production shot up last year, not because of the Grow More Food campaign but because of the increase in the world market prices which encouraged many farmers to go back to the land. Many of them are now wondering why they bothered.
The Grow More Food Campaign was a wild experiment which was not properly conceived. But even worse is that the floods of December 2008 and the release of water from the East Demerara Water Conservancy have all but washed away that campaign.
The agricultural sector has been devastated and for many life will be hard because it will take some time for them to reinvest, not just because they will not be able to find the money, but also because they will question the futility of going back to the land given what has happened in 2005, 2006 and then in 2008.
A lot of small farmers have been affected. Many of them depended on their little gardens for their survival. They will face hard times until their new crops reach maturity.
Consumers too can expect problems. Already there is an acute shortage of fruits and vegetables in Guyana at the moment and all because of the floods, which could have been avoided had there not been the distraction with the Grow More Food Campaign.
The biggest disaster in the agricultural sector has, however, been in the sugar industry. GuySuCo’s fortunes have plummeted under the new agricultural minister.
This is too large an industry for the mistakes that were made and the misfortune which the industry suffered to not have a devastating impact on the entire country.
The rot should have been detected earlier and interventions made, but the eye was off the ball seeking to increase production while the most critical productive sector was in decline.
Then there was the huge problem with the factory. Not a problem entirely of the government’s making, but certainly one for which they must accept responsibility.
We are now hearing talk about the sugar industry not showing a profit until the year 2015.
This is unbelievable and certainly I do not believe this could have been in the original pan for the restructuring of the industry. An explanation is needed for this unfortunate state of affairs since hundreds of millions were invested to turn around the industry and instead we are facing a calamity. The sugar industry has never been in such poor shape.
I do not believe in miracles and I certainly do not believe that the industry will simply turn around because we will have a more engaged interim Board and a shake-up in the management of the corporation. The problems are much deeper. And therefore so too must be the extent of the shake-up.

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