Latest update May 6th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 26, 2017 Features / Columnists, My Column
Guyana spends a lot of money on food imports, although the country is considered one of the more self-sufficient countries in the region. It can actually feed itself but then again, with disposable income people tend to seek a few luxuries.
I still remember the hullabaloo when there was what was called import restriction. The foods in this category were potatoes, sardines, salt fish, split peas and other lentils and of course, wheat flour. Needless to say, the hue and cry that went up was deafening. People started to complain that they were being starved.
I still hear that flour was an ethnic necessity without which people would die. The government of the day was trying to teach import substitution or as the late Dr Ptolemy Reid said, import replacement. The cassava flour experiment was a failure, because the people never put their minds to it.
However, the canned foods and the salt fish were indeed replaced, that to this day, Guyana is in a position to export its own salted fish. Most people alive today do not know the taste of the imported cod. Potatoes are easily replaced with local ground provisions, but there are the few who insist on this foreign product.
Just this past week the news came that some Caribbean countries had placed a ban on corned beef from Brazil. The contention was that rotten beef was being used to produce this canned food that we spend millions of dollars on. The culprit is said to be brands such as Anglo. But I happened to notice that there was a brand of Grace corned beef that said ‘Made in Brazil.’
The talk is the high exchange rate. Businessmen want huge sums of foreign currency, and I am willing to bet that most of this money is to buy foreign foods that are not necessities. But if the buyers insist on eating these things, then they will have to pay even more. The fallout will be on the government, because people are going to be calling for more money since their pay will not allow them to sustain the foreign habit.
I was one who was weaned off the canned food. I go to the market place and I buy the greens and vegetables on display. I go to the butchery and I buy fresh cuts. I am a lover of fish; I can eat fish seven days a week.
Incidentally, in the metropolis, fish is perhaps the most expensive meat, alongside the crustaceans. In Guyana, fish is one of the cheapest meats. The only foreign input in fish is the petrol. Many of my friends eat local, perhaps because we grew up hearing the slogan, ‘be local buy local’.
I still remember parents feeding their babies of plantain flour. They boiled it then strained it so that the baby’s stomach would not have to work a lot. These days we buy Gerber’s because we could afford it. No more cassava porridge or even plantain porridge, because our taste is for cereal. But even then, we made our own cereal from rice. That is a dead art.
In those days the lesson was that when we buy local we were creating employment for the local farmers. We do the opposite when we buy foreign foods, but as former colonials we feel obligated to put money into foreign pockets.
Last week the Government Analyst Food and Drug Department put a clamp on a large shipment of tuna that appeared to be a knock-off from the Brunswick brand. I didn’t even know that we imported tuna in tins. I can imagine what else is being imported, using up foreign currency.
Products made in China are all stamped big and bold—Made in China. This tuna that the Analyst stopped was made in PRC. The importer said that it stood for People’s Republic of China. I am looking to see if there are any other Made in China products with this PRC label.
We should have been further ahead, because about four decades ago we tried setting up canneries. These failed because of the paucity of electricity and a lack of will.
I hear the clamour for foreign currency, and I wonder whether the bulk is for the foreign foods. Four or five years ago, the Caricom Heads of Government voted that Guyana chair the agricultural sub-committee, because the region wanted to cut back on the US$6 billion food import bill. That is a lot of money and even if Guyana could position itself to get US$2billion of that money, one can imagine what it would do to the economy. Yet as a people we appear to be prepared to buy just about everything that the foreign country makes.
I could not help but notice that one airline was seeking an exchange rate of $250 to the United States dollar. This could only happen because our economic situation is such that we can travel at will. For a poor, struggling people with a population of fewer than a million people, we have at least six airlines. We are doing well.
Someone recently said to me that the Cubans come every week and spend at least US$3 million. I do not know if that money gets into the system, but it must be around somewhere. I do know when Guyanese came from abroad to enjoy the Golden Jubilee they came with so much money that the exchange rate was drastically lowered.
In fact, the cambios were hard pressed to buy. Things were good. I do not know how the situation is so different, given that foreign currency is still coming into the country in more than drops. It has to be something else.
One school of thought is that there are people who are listening to the political opposition and trying their utmost to make the government look bad. And while this is happening, there are those who are saying that the government is at fault.
GRA catch EXXON trying to hunch GUYANA over 11 BUS dollars in one shot!!!!
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