The high cost of food is hurting the most vulnerable citizens – the aged, poor, unemployed and single-parent families – who most need adequate, affordable and nutritious food. Food costs often affect hinterland residents more than coastlanders owing to production, preservation, transportation and distribution costs. About 43 per cent of the population eke out an existence on about $1,000 a day.
Former President David Granger made this claim while speaking on his weekly programme – The Public Interest. He pointed out that poor, working-class women and their families have been overwhelmed by the high cost of everyday food – bread; cabbage; cassava; cooking oil; eggs; fish; flour; fruit; milk; plantains; sweet potatoes and tomatoes. He reckoned that it would cost a family of five about $115,000 to buy adequate and appropriate food, monthly.
Mr. Granger blamed the high cost of food on the PPPC administration’s unbalanced and unsound policies. These deficiencies cannot be remedied by paltry ‘cash’ grants, pitiful State Old Age Pensions – SOAP; puny public servants’ salary increases and other stop-gap handouts. ‘
Tips’ and ‘frecks’ do not reduce the cost of food. Despite the administration’s boast of having a fast growing economy and its actual withdrawal of US$1.002 billion (about G$208.9 billion) from the Natural Resource Fund in 2023, expenditure has been on projects, not people. Their quality of life has been eroded by the high cost of food.
The PPP/C administration, over the past 40 months, participated in several local and international conferences and exhibitions and made boastful declarations. Promises have been made to provide ‘strong leadership’ on food security; to open lands for intra-regional agricultural investment; to implement a Business-to-Business (B2B) platform and a Government-to-Government (G2G) portal; to dismantle barriers to inter-regional trade; to make farmlands available for youths and to lead in achieving ‘25 by 25’ by reducing CARICOM food import bill by 25 per cent by 2025, next year. Promises and pronouncements, however, have not materialized in cheaper food at the village market or on the dinner table.
Food costs have risen, the former president said, mainly because production is insufficient and distribution is inefficient. Foreign food imports – fruit, meat and vegetables – enrich importers but ruin local farmers. Food costs continue to rise, also, because the PPP/C administration deliberately disregards the APNU+AFC coalition’s grass-roots, people-centred programmes which promoted agro-processing, village farming and micro-enterprise. This attitude eroded village economies and made production of foods uncompetitive.
Granger said that the administration’s ‘food’ policy seems to be bent on regressive measures of spending billions on ‘vanity’ projects – such as hemp, millet, roses, soybean and wheat − rather than progressive programmes to grow everyday food. People are hungry and children are malnourished but they have been fed a diet of fictional ‘food hubs’ and catchwords. He advised that consideration be given to intensifying production and processing; infusing fruit and vegetables into the daily diet and increasing investment to improve transportation infrastructure to prevent deterioration of goods and farm-to-table losses.
The former president lamented the fact that the administration spent forty months on declarations and exhibitions while food costs soared. He said that there is now need for a change of policy in order to increase food production and processing. Hampers and handouts cannot feed a productive population and nourish a healthy next generation. 󠆳
