Stink potatoes and foreign fruits after 50 years of Independence

Jul 01, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Do you know the foreign fruits industry here is a money winner? I pass a company daily on my way to Georgetown from Turkeyen, and its expansion has been phenomenal. This is a family business that started out importing grapes and apples. Later down the years it added strawberries, pears (not avocadoes). Later on it added foreign vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower. Despite its additions over the years, its main vehicle continues to be apples and grapes.
This business has grown by leaps and bounds. The economics are simple. We do not have a large enough expatriate stratum to keep that particular importation business afloat, and the situation is even more complicated by the existence of other such firms. The place I am referring to is not the only company importing grapes and apples. Why then does a thriving market remain for these foreign fruits? Because a sizeable chunk of the local population across race, class and culture buy apples and grapes. Apples and grapes are not cheap goods on the market, yet they sell.
Apples and grapes are not better than the local fruits. So why do Guyanese love them?
The answer is the permanent psychological effect that colonial values have on the population of the peoples of the Third World. If you are a lay person and reading this, you need to get a simplified explanation of one of the greatest books ever written on the effects of colonialism. Edward Said, the Palestinian professor at Columbia University took his place among the pantheon of brilliant Third World scholars with his famous and fantastic book on the effects of colonial culture on the Arab people.
Titled, “Orientalism,” this book ranks as a classic in anti-colonial scholarship, and puts Said among the best that such scholarship produced. Unfortunately at a young age, Said died of cancer. Whenever I think of the enduring influence of colonial penetration of the Third World, I remember Said and the words that say; “the point is not to live forever, but to create something that will. “ Said died young, but he left an epistemological text that will live forever.
Why does a thriving market in foreign fruits exist in a country that produces some of the best fruits and vegetables in the entire world? The answer is psychological and is totally unrelated to prices. What is so special about an apple as compared to a succulent guava, a juicy mango, a delicious banana, a delectable sapodilla, a cheesy avocado?
There is a fruits vendor at the junction of East and Church Streets facing the Merriman Mall. He sells out of a canter truck. That man’s banana species is simply gorgeous. Comparing those bananas with apples is like comparing Brian Lara and a village batsman. How can any Guyanese find a grape a tastier fruit than a slice of pineapple – my wife’s favourite fruit?
I see that the family-owned company referred to above has expanded into a huge physical building. Yesterday, I looked at the new structure going up and I said to myself that business is booming, the business of foreign fruits. But in a strange twist of fate, another foreign item tells the story in an opposite way of the failure of 50 years of Independence –potatoes.
I cannot believe what I saw last week at one of the leading supermarkets. These potatoes were unfit for human consumption. I lived outside and there is no way, the people of Europe, the US and Canada would even feed those kinds of awful potatoes to their pets.
When you see these potatoes then you would know that they could not have been bought by an importation company, but were probably dumped and that company got it free and brought it to Guyana. Shopping next to me was Dr. Emanuel Cummings, lecturer in Health Sciences at UG and husband of the Junior Minister of Health. I suggested to Dr. Cummings that he take a look at the potatoes. He immediately said he wasn’t interested, because he thinks Guyanese should be eating sweet potatoes instead of the Irish varieties that Guyana imports.
Before I move off, I assert as someone who lived abroad that I do not believe for a moment that any firm would export those kinds of potatoes.
I went to the other supermarket to see if they had similar types to the ones that I found scornful. Only one supermarket has normal looking potatoes. All the rest had the stink, horrible looking ones I talked to Dr. Cummings about. I am convinced that that stuff is being discarded and someone is getting it free and selling it to Guyanese.

4 thoughts on “Stink potatoes and foreign fruits after 50 years of Independence”

Pam July 1, 2016 at 8:29 pm

Can the sale of foreign fruits in Guyana make the importers wealthy? I think for that to happen a large percentage of the Guyanese population would be consuming foreign fruits and veggies regularly. They sell at a higher price and I don’t see most Guyanese buying them. Could be just a front for other economic activities……….just saying!
Pam July 1, 2016 at 8:30 pm

Because it was imported.
Muhammad Raoof July 1, 2016 at 9:33 pm

Freedie, these kinds of businesses will flourish because some Guyanese do not think with their heads anymore and cannot see that the local produce is by far a superior product…
19CAGriffith48 July 1, 2016 at 9:36 pm

Frederick: Excellent Book recommendation !

Acknowledgements
I have been reading about Orientalism for a number of years, but most of this
book was written during 1975-1976, which I spent as a Fellow at the Center for
Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences, Stanford, California. In this unique and generous institution, it was my good fortune not only to have benefited agreeably from several colleagues, but also from the help of Joan Warmbrunn, Chris Hoth, Jane Kielsmeier, Preston Cutler, and the center’s director, Gardner Lindzey.

The list of friends, colleagues, and students who read, or listened to, parts or the whole of this manuscript is so long as to embarrass me, and now that it has finally appeared as a book, perhaps even them, Nevertheless I should mention with gratitude the always helpful encouragement of Janet and Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Noam Chomsky, and Roger Owen, who followed this project from its beginning to its conclusion.