President Granger details the agricultural path

Nov 25, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
National Farmers Organisation waited from Sunday, February 12, 2017 to the present to make this response to an article the President of Guyana wrote in KN, dated February 12, 2017. His Excellency expressed his heart-felt sincere exhortations on matters of interest to all Guyana, especially how we, the nation’s food providers, are treated as outside children.
Others in authority would have read the article, and by others we mean those persons the President entrusted with agriculture’s development, and the production of food for the nation and for export. We waited patiently for a responsible response from those same officials, ten months after the President expressed his disappointment at the way things were going in agricultural development.
Mr. Granger expressed the dangers of food insecurity for the entire planet. Then he speaks about Guyana’s abundance of land and fresh water supplies for agricultural purposes, placing Guyana in an enviable position to take advantage of the increased demand for food, globally.
Then he says Guyana can play a meaningful role through investment, infrastructure, information and innovation in agriculture.
He said he visited a farm in the Rupununi savannahs, where a Barbadian investor is producing a wide range of crops. That he has invited Regional leaders, by that we think he means CARICOM businessmen to invest in Guyana, we hope they would spend their money in the savannahs, and leave our Coastlands and riverain areas to our local small farmers.
The President then proceeded to point out the requirements for agri-development. He laments the deplorable conditions of roads and dams. The increased cost for farmers to access inputs for production, we guess he means inorganic fertilisers, machinery, vegetable seeds etc. increased cost of transportation for produce to markets, increased levels of spoilage and losses of produce.
He further states that infrastructure such as roads, or dams will facilitate greater access by our farmers to inputs. Roads or dams will allow farmers to get produce quickly and easily to markets. Infrastructural development has both direct and indirect effects on output and productivity.
The portions of the article we appreciate most of all are those that lay out his vision of the good life he talks about. He said food security involves encouraging farmers to produce more, which should be done by ensuring that farmers gain more from their production.
This is the part where we are really feeling good. The President said, we will establish farmers’ markets which will allow farmers to retail their produce at prices higher than they would obtain from the middle man. Herein lay the encouragement we farmers need from Government.
The President has spoken on the issues of agriculture as we see them being the ones who labour under the poor conditions the President pointed out. He speaks about innovation, agro-processing, about the agri sector leading the revival of rural Guyana. So well has Mr. Grainger laid out the issues that we would like to make him an Honorary Member of the National Farmers Organisation?
Was the President talking to us, the people alone? Where are his Ministers of Agriculture, Infrastructure, Communities, Business and all the other Government officials whose portfolios and job description demand that what the President has seen, and written about suggest that he has around him people to whom he has entrusted vital assignments.
They are either unable, incompetent, or don’t give a damn to what is required of them. They are people who may have read the President’s writings in that February 12 article, and just went about their merry ways. After all they do not suffer from what Mr. Granger pointed out as being the hindrances to agricultural development in Guyana.
Nine months has passed since the publication of the President’s expressed views. We would like to suggest that Mr. Grainger deliberately used the public media to tell the people that he has persons in those areas we mentioned who must leave their air-conditioned offices, use the expensive vehicles to visit farm areas to witness the truths he witnessed.
May we use this letter to suggest to His Excellency that we the farming folks have the ideas to the solutions necessary for his vision towards agriculture and rural development, that we who are suffering know where it hurts the most! We do not need x-rays or high priced officials to ease our suffering.

Hafiz Rahman
National Farmers Organisation

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President Granger details the agricultural path

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