The Rene Dumont Report on agriculture should be accepted in its entirety

Oct 07, 2016 Letters

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Dear Editor,
It is now generally accepted that there cannot be true national economic and social development without proper attention with regard to the improvement of the rural areas, where vast numbers of the national population reside. This segment of the rural population is self-employed in crops production and livestock rearing among other occupations of growing things, and making things, as in handicraft. They constitute that section of the population which must be considered as vital to the general well-being of any national population.
Agriculture as an engine for growth provides employment for our population, materials for secondary industries, especially cottage industries; and serves as protector of the environment, among some other sensitive purposes. Guyana’s attitude to agriculture needs to be examined afresh, keeping an open mind to the way crops (other than sugar and rice) have been treated as subsistence rivals to the export oriented foreign exchange earners sugar and rice.
These “other crops/cash crops” have been forced to maintain their existence partly due to the needs for food by low income consumers. Guyana found itself in the pattern of operating within the realm of imperial patterns that never allowed us to establish an outlook and approach convenient to our needs. The Rene Dumont Report on agricultural development was never implemented in its totality. Some regarded this report as the Bible for Guyana’s Agriculture. The placement of agro-economy as a core element of our national economic plan is immediate in our communal development relations and growth of national culture.
We also need to evolve into 21st century farming, where technology such as information management, new forms of energy explosion of knowledge in gene mapping resulting in a variety of possibilities in agri-industry, other new technology, computers, new science of DNA, new forms of adaptables to the needs of agriculture, energy from wind, water, sun and bio-gas.
At present skeleton communities dot all the near and far flung areas of the hinterland, some islands and other rural and agricultural communities. The concept of the “community” as being currently adumbrated is revolutionary, and will be well supported by the residents of the depleted communities. These communities cannot be allowed to dwindle to extinction as can happen if they are not saved through the influx of new farmers in their midst. We need to operate on the expectation that residents who left the area in desperation will return, when evidence of forms of stimulation of renewal is exhibited as happened in the Kent Dam Settlement.
At this time in our country, many rural and interior folks are migrating to the coastal areas in search of the better life they expect. They are getting away from what some discern as minor matters which cause serious dislocation to their lives. What they encounter is misery and degradation – from self-employment to servitude, from dignity to squalor. Some may say they are leaving their homesteads to seek “betterment” for their children, which is true, for practically all social services are either non-existent, or come with a price people are unable to bear. Our indigenous peoples are hardest hit. In many parts of the Coastlands young vibrant Indigenous persons eke out an existence as labourers for which they do not receive adequate wages, as bar maids, and generally low paying jobs.
The lack of vocational and technical training facilities has to be established as of now. Agricultural training pertaining to new crops along with their preservation and storage, perhaps some home economics training would add to the social and economic upliftment of various hinterland communities. The untold degradation meted out to our indigenous peoples is legendary.  Not more studies, but work needs to be done now to once and for all relieve the burdens placed on our First Peoples.
Rural prosperity is closely linked with productivity in agriculture. Adoption of appropriate tools and technologies is imperative for bringing about increased productivity and high return in terms of socio-economic benefits.
De-emphasising rice and sugar as both are major users of the same foreign exchange they earn, has come to the fore.  They are coming under intense competition and with the high mechanisation factors of both, they are unreliable and seems to cloud the vision of dependence on other crops which can be cultivated productively, utilising the skills garnered by our farmers.
Growing of crops and rearing of livestock is not the only activity of rural people. There are other things rural people do for a living, apart from providing unskilled labour, so necessary in the gathering of the harvest.
Rural people are craftsmen, carpenters, joiners, other wood workers, tailors, gutter smith, mechanical repairmen, electronic repairs, and others including handicrafts by women in the domain of working with indigenous natural materials. Apart from trades and skills that are dying out due to underutilisation, new skills are coming to the fore, which need to be fostered.
Toward the task of establishing a new approach to Agricultural and Rural Development in Guyana, we need to focus on the many tried and tested methods which have been identified as the model for providing food at reasonable cost to the consumer, viable income to the grower of crops and rearer of livestock, and importantly to the life of the rural person, farmer or other.
Hafiz Rahaman

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