Latest update February 8th, 2025 6:23 PM
Jun 26, 2008 News
After several weeks on the order paper of the National Assembly, the forum will today finally be called upon to recognise that the spiraling food crisis affecting the country requires national and sustained efforts coupled with engagements with critical sectors and groups to confront this challenge.
The work of the inter-ministerial committee headed by Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud is also slated for deliberations by the highest forum in the nation and an appraisal of its own deliberation.
The Committee was set up by Cabinet to review the impact of rising food prices on Guyanese and for citizens to make recommendations intended to cushion the impact of the now worldwide crisis.
Among the resolutions in the motion is for the National Assembly to undertake to follow the implementation of government interventions which includes subsidising the cost of accessing utility services and implementing the Ministry of Agriculture’s ‘Grow More’ campaign among others.
The market-driven agenda is aimed at having local farmers increase production first to satisfy local demand as well as for export.
The initiative is also aimed at having households (mainly rural households with available land space) to farm on a small scale to alleviate grocery bills.
The campaign is being funded by a US$20M grant for agricultural diversification and some $20M in seeds have been slated for distribution throughout the 10 regions of the country.
The motion has been tabled by Persaud and falls under the background of the continuous spike in food prices caused mainly by four factors, namely: increase in the price of fossil fuels, effects of climate change, increase in production of bio-fuels, and growing demand for food in large emerging economies.
Food prices over the past year and a half have spiked by some 80 per cent and are having a devastating effect on the supply and affordability of food for populations in both developing and developed nations.
To date, various multilateral and regional institutions, including the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the World Bank, the World Food Programme and CARICOM, have already called for urgent action and heightened collaboration to tackle the global crisis.
According to the IMF, over the past 12 months global food prices have increased on average by more than 40 per cent.
Most experts believe that there is no single driver behind the unparalleled rise in the cost of foods which now threatens the well being of millions of people, particularly the poorest of the poor in the developing world.
Factors cited by experts include the increased demand for food commodities from developing countries (as a result of population increases and increased consumption of meat), the production of crops for bio-fuels, increased costs of transportation, fuel and fertilizer due to the increasing cost of oil, a weakening U.S. currency which increases the effective cost for commodities purchased with dollars, and recurring natural disasters such as drought and flooding among others.
Feb 08, 2025
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