When pumpkin became a luxury

Aug 10, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

(Kaieteur News) There was a time, not so long ago, when pumpkin was pumpkin.

You went to the market, found a vendor, pointed to a whole pumpkin, paid your money and took it home. Nobody asked you how many pounds you wanted. Nobody weighed it. Nobody carefully cut it into sections as though dividing a precious commodity. You bought a pumpkin by its size.

This was in the days when money was scarce and times were hard. Yet even then, there were certain things one could still afford. Pumpkin was one of them.
I never imagined that I would live to see the day when pumpkin in Guyana would be sold by the pound.

But recently I did. I stood in a market looking at pumpkin being sold by weight and had one of those small, unsettling experiences in which the present suddenly makes the past seem like another country. A vegetable that once seemed almost too ordinary to price has become something to be measured carefully. And pumpkin is not alone.

Bora has become another reminder of how far things have changed. A thousand dollars can barely buy enough bora to prepare a modest meal for four. There was a time when that same $1,000 could buy a considerable quantity. Indeed, I can remember when $100 could buy a parcel of bora without the buyer feeling that he had acquired something of consequence.
These days, you will be hard-pressed to find a parcel of anything for $100. Not even squash.

Squash was once among those vegetables that seemed almost to be given away. You bought it because it was dog cheap. Today, you may find yourself handing over $500 for what once would have been regarded as an afterthought in the market basket.

Yet, we are constantly being told that Guyana is experiencing an agricultural revolution. We hear about increased food production, modern farming, technology, investment, diversification and of Guyana becoming the breadbasket of the Caribbean.

But there is a simple question that the ordinary consumer is entitled to ask: If food production is increasing, why is food becoming so expensive?
The answer cannot simply be that demand has increased. There is no doubt that Guyana has more mouths to feed. The arrival of an estimated 200,000 additional migrants from Venezuela and Cuba has placed greater pressure on the food supply.

But demand alone cannot explain everything. Somewhere between the farmer and the consumer, something is going wrong.
The agricultural chain has become a long and complicated journey. The farmer produces. Someone transports. Someone wholesales. Someone distributes. Someone retails. By the time the pumpkin reaches the kitchen, the consumer may be paying several times what the farmer received.

The people at the beginning of the chain work hard. The people at the end pay hard. And somewhere in between, somebody appears to be doing rather well.

This is the part of the agricultural supply chain that is rarely discussed. We celebrate production figures, hectares cultivated and tonnes harvested. But the consumer does not eat hectares. The consumer eats food. What matters finally is not merely how much we produce, but whether ordinary people can afford to buy it.

The farmer must earn a reasonable income. The transporter must cover his costs. The vendor must make a living. But there must be some point at which the system stops rewarding layers of middlemen and starts protecting the consumer.

Otherwise, we produce more food, but the food becomes less affordable.
There is only one durable answer. Produce so much food that the market has more than enough.

A genuine surplus changes the balance of power. When there is a glut, prices fall..

The first possibility is remarkably simple: get families planting again. There was a time when the backyard was part of the food system. People planted cassava, eddoes, peppers, tomatoes, ochro, pumpkin and other vegetables. Not every family had a kitchen garden. But many families had something growing behind the house. We should encourage that again on a massive scale.

The second possibility is that Guyana should explore arrangements with the Chinese to establish large-scale commercial farms producing food specifically for the domestic market. The objective should not simply be exports. We need food here.

We need the Chinese to help us produce more food because the local agricultural system and the chain through which its products reach consumers have failed to keep prices within reasonable reach.

That failure cannot be disguised by statistics about local food production. The ordinary Guyanese does not go to the market carrying an economic spreadsheet. He carries a wallet. And increasingly, the wallet is coming home lighter while the market bag is coming home emptier.

This is not what an agricultural revolution should look like. A green revolution should mean that food becomes more abundant, more accessible and more affordable.

It should mean that a mother can buy enough vegetables to feed her family without calculating whether she can afford the pumpkin. It should mean that $1,000 buys more than a few strings of bora. It should mean that pumpkin once again becomes pumpkin—not a luxury item.

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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luxury, Market, pumpkin, Vegetables, vendor

One thought on “When pumpkin became a luxury”

Martin August 10, 2026 at 11:28 am

You’re absolutely right , the people should start back planting & producing the vegetable & poultry in their backyards & other spaces around the home ,avoiding going to the markets & paying exorbitant prices to acquire the produce!!!
Goberdhan Chris Ram has encouraged/advised the public that everyone should get involved in “oil’!!! Maybe the Accountant/Lawyer/Politician doesn’t know about a “kitchen garden” or the “Dutch Disease”!!!
Thanks to the President & Minister of Agriculture leading the way in this respect with vision & practicality to achieve Guyana being the ‘bread basket’ of the Caribbean once again & the people enjoying an abundance of vegetables, fruits , milk & meat at a nominal price if cannot be reaped in their backyards!!!

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