We should return to Burnham’s development model

Apr 04, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I have read with interest Mr. Adam Harris’ article titled ‘Are we wasting foreign exchange’ as published in the Kaieteur News online edition, of the week beginning March 26, 2017.
Before recording my views and comments on the article, I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Harris for the quality of his weekly articles, and his style of presentation, which exposes his earlier job experience as a school teacher. Although I have known him for a number of years I never knew that he started work-life as a school teacher, until reading some of his recent writings, and noting, that he has not ceased being an educator.
My interpretation of his article is that Guyana has strayed from an earlier development model initiated by the Burnham PNC administration which identified and promoted agriculture, as one of the pillars of Guyana’s economic development. To my way of thinking, it was a good and workable model. The flaws and weaknesses alluded to by Mr. Harris are related to the interpretation, implementation and operationalisation of the technical components of the policy proposals. The broad objectives of the policy and its programmes were, to create an enabling environment for Guyana to use agriculture by way of sustainable production systems to achieve self-sufficiency and industrialisation. Exploring the linkages between primary production, processing, manufacturing, support services, sales and marketing would have created new and rewarding vistas of opportunities for our people, and our Caribbean neighbours.
Let us examine the issues raised by Mr. Harris, some of which are classified as failed. Feeding ourselves was a very noble concept, framed as it was, as an Import replacement / substitution programme. In retrospect it should have been designed within the context of a Food and Nutrition Strategy, with components such as health and wellness, being part of it. I believe that we took too big a bite on the proverbial cherry. We needed to be strategic in our approach, and should have developed a series of 3 to 5 years strategic plans, highlighting projects and programmes on a limited number of crops such as – rice, coconuts, cassava, coffee or soya beans, citrus and food crops, and in addition livestock activities such as dairy, small stock and poultry. All these agricultural activities have industrial potential and linkages.
As a people, we must begin to see non-sugar agriculture beyond the hoe and cutlass small farms. It must be seen through the lenses of science, technology and economic units or enterprises. In the 1970’s, we were producing and exporting farine to a Bermudian company, at 3 monthly intervals. At the time we were importing FAREX, a farine based baby food from a sister company. FAREX is farine, milk, vitamins and stabilisers. The Guyana house-wife who was unwilling to give her baby cassava, plantain or eddoe flour porridge, was feeding her baby FAREX, which is a cassava based product.
The farine was produced by one Mr. Augustine of Plaisance, East Coast Demerara, bought by the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) and exported to Bermuda. Similarly Guyana Instant Coffee was made from Pomeroon, Mabaruma and Kumaka, coffee beans that were shipped overseas by the GMC for processing, and returned to Guyana as instant coffee for distribution and sale.
I remember the 1970’s resistance to rice and cassava flour. Today, if you were to visit supermarkets in North, South, and Central America, and the Caribbean you would see packaged (5 and 10 lb) wheaten flour sold as ‘Wheaten flour fortified / enriched with rice flour; wheaten flour fortified / enriched with cassava flour; wheaten flour fortified / enriched with white corn flour; wheaten flour fortified / enriched with barley flour etc. The important word is fortified / enriched as the packaged flour is presented as a superior product. We can add between 10 and 15 percent of cassava or rice flour to our wheaten flour without affecting the quality of our bread, cakes, dumpling, roti etc.
I do not have current data on the consumption of wheaten flour in Guyana, but before I left Guyana the Flour Mills on the East Bank of Demerara manufactured wheaten flour, but the GMC was the sole Wholesaler / Distributer. At that time, we consumed 60,000 x 100 lb bags of flour per month except in the months of June and December when demand rose to 90,000 x 100 lb bags for each of those months. This gave us a total annual consumption of about 39,000 metric tonnes. If we were to target ten (10) percent of that total demand to be rice or cassava flour and blend it to enrich our wheaten flour, our imports of wheaten flour equivalent of wheat will be reduced, and so will be our savings in foreign exchange; while our rice and cassava farmers will have a ready market for an additional 3,900 metric tonnes of flour equivalent in those crops, and the country would benefit from the spin-offs in employment etc.
What we did in the 1970’s was attempt to replace wheaten flour with cassava and rice flour. That was a flawed approach. We should in 2017 and beyond be promoting wheaten flour fortified / enriched with cassava flour or rice flour. Promote this product at home and in CARICOM among the many flour mills and the possibilities are mind boggling.
Food promotion, distribution, marketing and sales are all about taste, price, colour, packaging, presentation, smell etc. Another crop with great potential is the coconut. Coconut is now referred to globally as the ‘miracle food’. Those of us from the rural areas of Guyana grew up with an intimate relationship with the coconut – from hairdressing and body lotion to shine rice and cook-up. From industrial use by coconut oil producers to fire side and coal pot fuel for flat irons, pressing combs, cooking etc. But coconut was demonized globally in the 1970’s as an agent for Cholesterol. The result was the demise of the industry in the Philippines, India, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Guyana etc.
Its present rebirth in Guyana must be structured, and an industry built around it with outputs such as coconut water, coconut oil for food and pharmaceuticals, coconut offal for animal feed, coconut shells for craft and coal fuel for domestic and industrial use. Coal as fuel would find a ready market in countries such as Haiti where charcoal and its negative impact on the environment is evident.
I close with a story: Around 1976 some visiting relatives brought red ‘ice’ apples for my family in Guyana. One day I came home from work and saw my children playing cricket with the apples. They had grown up not knowing apples, because they were banned during that period. Contrast that with persons in the mid 1970’s who would bring doctors letters to me at the GMC laying preferential claim on the (grounds of health) to the limited amount of white ‘Irish’ potatoes grown at Paramakatoi and other hinterland locations and distributed at the GMC.
Hugh Saul

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