Guyana was among 38 countries that achieved the first Millennium Development Goal before the 2015 deadline – to halve the percentage of people in the country who were hungry compared to base figures from 1990. This was more than satisfactory.
That we were only one of 18 countries to have achieved the tougher goal of the World Food Summit set in 1996, to halve the number of malnourished people by 2012, was shocking to a country plunged to the level of Lower Africa -Sahara by the PNC by 1992, when the PPP / C took office.
What our experience has shown is that good intentions in this area are not good enough. The PNC, in its five-year plan 1972-1976, had explicitly stated that its aims were to “Feed, clothe and house” the nation by the end of the plan. But the policies he undertook proved so catastrophic that thousands became hungry and contracted “white mouth” as a visible sign of rampant malnutrition.
We can look at those plans as an object lesson, as a “what not to do” if we are to fulfill the new “No Hunger Challenge” subsequently launched by the United Nations, which is now being put back on CariCom agenda. The first lesson is that farmers must be given incentives to stay on the land. Appeals to “patriotism” will not suffice.
One of the pillars of Guyanese food security has been the rice industry, as that grain is by far our main staple. Because of the knowledge of wet growing in rice brought over from their native North by the laborers after 1838, Guyana moved from being a rice importer from Myanmar (then “Burma”) to exporter in the early 20th century .
The incentive was the profits earned by the farmers, which enabled them to claw their way up the economic ladder. The PNC’s plan was to be “reasonable” – in writing. He enacted the purchase of all paddy and rice from the farmers, initially invested in large-scale milling facilities, and controlled all exports. The profits were supposed to be plowed back into the economy to finance the thrust of manufacturing, so that the country could climb up the value-added stairs.
The fatal flaw was that the Government and its planners were either too greedy or were overestimating the patriotism of the farmers. Or they were vengeful. Their prices to the farmers were so low that there was an implicit tax on the rice industry of over 100%, based on the foreign sale price. The result, unsurprisingly, was that farmers left the industry in droplets, and those who remained did so because there were no alternative sources of employment.
Equally surprisingly, when the PPP Government overturned PNC policies and pumped funds into agricultural infrastructure such as drainage and irrigation, production increased to the record-breaking 600,000+ tonnes per year. The same policy must be followed in all other areas of food production.
Guyana’s relative advantage has always been in its vast areas of available farmland. When sugar was king back in the days of the colony, its cultivation received the most preferred land and irrigation / drainage priorities. Especially in Demerara, the policy of using these main agricultural lands for housing must be rationalized now that sugar production has been cut. These lands should be planted in alternative crops to meet local and foreign demand for “food safety”.
We do not argue that the Government imitates or even mimics the PNC’s policies to ban food because it “drains on foreign reserves”. People must be free to eat what they choose, but we cannot forget that the choice between foods that may have the same nutritional value is socially shaped. We can certainly do more to encourage our farmers to treat “foreign” foods, and our people to eat and buy more local produce.
The key to success against hunger, we repeat, is: incentives, incentives, incentives – for farmers.
