This is advantage

Aug 22, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – A man on the social media platform Tik Tok has said that Guyana needs three days of fasting and prayers. He was responding to the spate of motor vehicle accidents on our roads.

Well, if Guyana needs three days of fasting and prayers to help address road carnage, then it needs a week of fasting and prayers to address the unconscionable prices vendors are charging for vegetables and fruits.

On Friday last, three small boulangers were being sold in the markets for $500. Not even during the Great Flood of 2005 were prices so prohibitive.  A small bundle of bora was retailing for $300. A small parcel of ochroes was going for $200. The prices of callaloo and same beans have all increased despite the improvement in the weather for weeks now. Squash, the cheapest of all vegetables and which is usually sold for $100, is now $500. Tomatoes were retailing at G$700 per lb. On the bright side, plantains were retailing at $120 per lb, down from a high of $250 per lb a few months ago.

Fruit prices are as high as the trees on which they grow.  Pineapples which previously were selling for $500 each are now retailing for $800 each. Apple bananas were selling at $240 per lb and five black spice mangoes were fetching $1000.  A medium-sized watermelon was topping $1,000.

There is very little, in the form of vegetables, which you can now buy for $100. All the items which you used to be able to purchase for $100 are now $200, even genip.

When in the past, you could go to the market with $5,000 and come away with fruits and vegetables for the entire week, you now have to spend more than twice this amount. And these are not imported items; they are all locally-grown commodities.

The farmers and the vendors are making a mockery of President Irfaan Ali’s food security campaign. If the prices of locally-grown commodities are skyrocketing, as they are at present, then Guyana has no moral authority to lead the Caribbean’s efforts at food security. President Ali has to take a serious look at what is happening before he goes jet-setting to ask the Caribbean to grow more food and to buy more food from Guyana.

Charity begins at home. But there is nothing charitable about the prices which the local farmers and vendors are demanding for locally-grown produce. Nor is the problem the seasonality of production. The prices are increasing in and out of season.

The farmers and vendors are overdoing it. No doubt, they too are affected by rising prices, including for fuel and fertilisers. They too have to pay double the normal price for cooking oil and pay higher amounts for dry goods at the grocers and supermarkets. But the increases which they have foisted on the public are excessive and disproportionate to the increased input costs and higher cost of living which they have to bear.

Nor is the problem a shortfall in production. The May-June rains of this year did not affect the agricultural sector as much as it did last year. Production therefore ought not to be a problem.

The government in fact is boasting about success in increasing the production of swamp shrimp. Yet, the price for a bucket of this shrimp is $22,000 when during period of glut had before the government invested in expanding production, a bucket of the same shrimp used to retail for as low as $9,000.

What is really going on in this country? Why are the farmers and fruit and vegetable vendors taking so much advantage of citizens? The increase in fish and chicken prices is understandable because the fishers have to pay much higher fuel costs and their catches are much smaller than before. The higher price for stockfeed has also pushed up chicken prices. As for duck and mutton, the average man can only afford to eat this once in a blue moon.  All of this has left consumers in a quandary.

Consumers however have power! They are not hapless and helpless. They have the power to decide whether they will pay higher prices.

What Guyana needs is a one week, in which the entire country decides that it will not eat fruits and vegetables. One week without this will not kill anybody but it will force the farmers to bring down their prices. All it will take is for Guyanese to stop buying fruits and vegetables for one week. This will force a reduction in prices since the produce will spoil in the vendors’ hands and they will be forced to reduce their prices the following week.

The present situation is the markets amounts to extortion. The prices of locally produced vegetables and fruits are stretching the wallets of consumers.

Certainly, there is a need for action to be taken to reduce road carnage. Whether three days of fasting and prayers are the answer is debatable. But when it comes to prices in the markets, one week of not buying or purchasing fruits or vegetables will help drive down prices and prevent further exploitation.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

 

 

 

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