Guyanese ingenuity led to heightened production

Feb 15, 2014 Editorial

Regardless of how much the immediate post-colonial administration in this country is criticized there is no getting away from the fact that they knew enough to understand that a country which depends on others for its sustenance is doomed to economic bondage.
In recent years those of us too young to know of certain ground-breaking initiatives would be impressed at the urgings of various senior public servants to produce and consume things local.
What these people’s servants fail to acknowledge is the fact that during the era of ‘non-democracy’ Guyanese were filled with a sense of purpose to survive using their own indigenous materials and skills.
It could also be argued that on the other hand there were some filled with the purpose of righting the wrong of a government imposed through undemocratic means, albeit by methods which debilitated the economy, and which in today’s context would be considered terroristic.
By and large what we fail to tell our young people is that this country blessed as it is with an abundance of natural resources was on the way to being self-sufficient in several respects.
It is possible that the achievements of yesteryear might pale in comparison to the plethora of imported commodities available to the consumer. A brief reflection on some items which came out of Guyana is necessary if we were to acknowledge that Guyanese are a resourceful people.
Guyanese produced canned orange juices and pineapple chunks under the Guycan brand; we produced Greco radios on East Coast Demerara at Golden Grove; Caloi bicycles were assembled in this country. There was a thriving oil palm industry with locations in the North West District while the women’s arm of the then ruling People’s National Congress were responsible for promoting locally made ceramic ware at Vanceram on the East Bank of Demerara.
The older folk can remember the innovative tie dye materials produced at the Sanata Textiles at the industrial estate at Ruimveldt. The locally assembled Tapir vehicles which are a common sight on the Corentyne coast was the widely used mode of public transport for commuters. Ideal brand refrigerators and stoves featured as the local substitute for Kelvinator and other imported models.
Zex and OK soaps were manufactured in Georgetown and poultry rearers purchased copra for feed at the soap factories in in D’Urban Street, Wortmanville, and in Evans Street, Charlestown.
Guyanese learned to preserve fruits and condiments and a thriving cottage industry was developed. Apart from the dissatisfaction occasioned from the contentious wheaten flour import restriction we were on the way to becoming self-sufficient.
Many are the anecdotes of urban dwellers being encouraged to plant kitchen gardens, and it was a common sight to see parapets adorned with pigeon pea trees.
Consider that nowadays in the face of rising food prices many Guyanese still refuse to plant even if it means reducing their food bill.
In all of this transformation or regression depending on how it is viewed, some commodities have held their own as truly great Guyanese products. These include our margarine, and chowmein which remain at the top of the list of “must bring” items when traveling to relatives overseas.
We owe it to ourselves and to our young people to share with them our belief in ourselves to be a creative nation. We need to go past the empty self-serving political rhetoric about growing more food, and begin the long climb back to an acceptable state of self-reliance.
A cursory look at the supermarket shelves could serve as the starting point for some serious introspection as to what we can do without if we are to survive in a hostile global economic environment.
But amid all the clamour of rising food prices is the realization that the coastland is bedeviled by a poor or absent drainage and irrigation system. Citizens have become numbed by the images of subsistence and commercial farmlands swamped and crops destroyed by floods. The quest for self-sufficiency must be supported by meaningful actions guided by a well-articulated agricultural policy formulated with the national interest as paramount.

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Guyanese ingenuity led to heightened production

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