RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A food cri­sis is com­ing in T&T un­less the gov­ern­ment be­gins food se­cu­ri­ty plan­ning, says agri­cul­ture econ­o­mist Omar­dath Ma­haraj.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ma­haraj said since Jan­u­ary he has been call­ing for of­fi­cials to pay at­ten­tion to agri­cul­ture and food pro­duc­tion in this coun­try.

“I tried to en­cour­age the prime min­is­ter to utilise his ex­perts and ap­pointees across min­istries, af­fil­i­at­ed State Agen­cies, and oth­er tech­ni­cal and co-or­di­nat­ing bod­ies to ur­gent­ly move in­to con­tin­gency plan­ning for our coun­try es­pe­cial­ly in the face of this and any oth­er pos­si­ble dis­as­ter to en­sure food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty for our peo­ple,” he said.

With farm­ers ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cul­ties in get­ting their goods to mar­ket, Ma­haraj said this could pre­vent many of them from re­plant­i­ng crops.

He not­ed that the ex­pan­sion of mil­i­tary as­sets off the coasts of Venezuela could al­so threat­en T&T’s rice sup­ply which comes from Guyana.

Farm­ers usu­al­ly use the pro­ceeds of their prof­its to rein­vest in farm­ing and Ma­haraj said if sup­port is not giv­en, farm­ers will have no means of plant­i­ng back pro­duce and this will trig­ger do­mes­tic food short­ages.

“This is why the gov­ern­ment needs to start food se­cu­ri­ty plan­ning to avoid price, pro­duc­tion, and mar­ket volatil­i­ty re­sult­ing in food chain cri­sis,” he said.

“As I said then, the Min­istry and State En­ter­prise Agen­cies with a re­lat­ed man­date for food and agri­cul­ture must be called to or­der. At the first sign of lack of ca­pac­i­ty or ca­pa­bil­i­ty, pub­lic con­fi­dence will be dam­aged sim­ply be­cause food will now have the high­est pri­or­i­ty among our com­pet­ing needs,” he added.

Say­ing that the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor has suf­fered from a his­to­ry of un­der­in­vest­ment and failed pol­i­cy, Ma­haraj warned, “If there is no de­sire to ad­dress food se­cu­ri­ty for T&T in the face of a glob­al pan­dem­ic, we are in grave dan­ger if the con­ver­sa­tions are anec­do­tal and piece­meal.”

While home gar­den­ing has its role, Ma­haraj said it must be seen as a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ef­fort.

“COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is re­mind­ing pol­i­cy­mak­ers and the pub­lic of the sig­nif­i­cance of their farm­ing and rur­al sec­tors. This will un­doubt­ed­ly re­shape their fu­ture ad­vo­ca­cy and po­si­tion on the de­vel­op­ment agen­da. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, in T&T there is se­ri­ous mis­in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main and per­haps a mis­un­der­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion at a pol­i­cy lev­el,” he said.

Not­ing that man­age­ment of a coun­try’s food sup­ply chain was not an easy task, Ma­haraj said leav­ing the pro­duc­tion of food sole­ly to be de­ter­mined by mar­ket forces and farm­ers’ pri­vate in­vest­ment hori­zon is un­ten­able.

“In the last bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance point­ed out that 194,000 peo­ple make a liv­ing on min­i­mum wage. This is fright­en­ing in the cir­cum­stances where sec­tors and busi­ness­es which tra­di­tion­al­ly use this type of labour are fac­ing an un­prece­dent­ed slow­down. It ex­pos­es the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of our peo­ple,” Ma­haraj said.

He added, “Peo­ple on the ground are con­tem­plat­ing the cost of feed­ing their fam­i­lies suf­fi­cient­ly. As I said urged over the years, rather than be­ing seen as a fi­nan­cial bur­den, a con­cert­ed ef­fort must be put in­to en­cour­ag­ing food pro­duc­tion at the house­hold lev­el.”

“This must in­clude greater broad­cast of home gar­den­ing cours­es, seedling avail­abil­i­ty, as well as pub­lic aware­ness and sup­port. Sev­er­al mod­els suit­ed to the net­work­ing of like-mind­ed peo­ple and ed­u­ca­tion have de­vel­oped and must be har­nessed for the na­tion­al good es­pe­cial­ly our Eat Lo­cal Day which brings farm­ers and fish­ers clos­er to the ta­ble,” he added.

Say­ing T&T must pre­pare, Ma­haraj ex­plained, “In this era of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, our im­port­ed food sup­ply is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly risky and more ex­pen­sive. Even with US mil­i­tary ac­tion near Venezuela, we al­so have to be mind­ful of our rice sup­ply from Guyana even as that coun­try bat­tles with the pan­dem­ic and the dec­i­ma­tion of the lit­tle we used to pro­duce lo­cal­ly.”

He said “The Unit­ed Na­tions Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­ga­ni­za­tion (FAO) warned of the im­pact of the COVID-19 virus on the glob­al food sup­ply chain.

“Stake­hold­ers agree that do­mes­tic agri­cul­ture and fish­eries are crit­i­cal in this pe­ri­od, as per­haps ever be­fore, but firm pol­i­cy po­si­tions are need­ed to di­rect­ly fos­ter pro­duc­tion, main­tain af­ford­abil­i­ty–both at the farm lev­el and con­sumer pric­ing, mar­ket­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion,” Ma­haraj said.

He not­ed that it is the gov­ern­ment’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to help farm­ers and fish­ers when they are fac­ing a cri­sis.

“We can­not de­ny the fact that the cost of liv­ing and hard­ship is on the rise. It is, there­fore, a ne­ces­si­ty for pol­i­cy­mak­ers to do more to­wards pre­serv­ing food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty at the house­hold lev­el, pro­tect and strength­en the men and women who work to feed the na­tion and, to act ag­gres­sive­ly to sta­bilise sen­ti­ment and build con­sen­sus on the way for­ward,” he added.