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Contract farming can spur agricultural development
Dear Editor,
Quite recently one of your reports stated that the Hon Minister of Agriculture was telling the citizenry at a public forum that he is in favour of Contract Farming to be used as a vehicle to spur agricultural growth in the nation. Agri-development has been used quite successfully in the Far East. Thailand is a case in point. I am aware that poultry producers as well as dairy and pig farmers there are provided with the necessaries for production by English and European entities. The farmers perform the husbandry and at the end of the production cycle, the products are graded, weighed and sold at the farm gate. Farmers are given a guaranteed price and the contract givers take out the costs of their inputs. This proves satisfactory to the farmers who are all ‘small men’ who have little or no access to the commercial banking system and can thus be ineligible for loans to carry out their operations.
With Government giving Guysuco countless billions of dollars annually and this company progressively sinking, it might well be time enough to change course. We can invest those same billions with first of all the workers either individually or in their organised groups. Government in the absence of private sector participation in such a scheme can set up a holding company for purposes of providing financing and agri-inputs for the project.
When the project shall have attained the desirable level of competence and success, Government can divest itself of its role by selling its holdings to private groupings of the said farmers. By that time our colleagues in the wider Caricom area can also take up shareholding in the schemes. It is important to note that the entire Caricom externally sourced food bill is bordering on ten billion US dollars annually. We can start to make a significant dent in this astronomical sum if we make early moves to revolutionize our agricultural sub-sector. Lastly we might well have to import Caricom labour to make such a project a reality.
Cyril Walker
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