The role of agriculture and the countryside

Let us not fool ourselves; SVG will never be any big thing in agriculture. The island is very small, the amount of flat land even less and much of that has already been built upon. As others have emphasized, internationally we are not a very competitive country. Least of all in agriculture, where the resource requirements are vast amounts of land, heavy machinery and sophisticated research. Internationally, we have usually only survived where we have a protected market, as was the case with bananas, or where others have not yet taken up the crop, as happened with sweet potatoes.{{more}} We built up a market for sweet potatoes when the vegetable was little known there. However, when it became popular as a health food and was stocked by all the supermarkets, the big countries became the suppliers. Brazil, USA, Spain, Uganda and the like took over. SVG was no longer in business.

This is not to say agriculture has no part to play in our economy. Far from it; it plays a threefold role. Firstly, it supplies food to the local and regional markets. Secondly, it exports exotics internationally. Arrowroot is one such exotic and with the opening of the Argyle Airport, it should be possible to identify others. Thirdly, it helps to beautify our country.

Food production for home consumption has a long history in SVG. The colonialists gave our enslaved ancestors pieces of land in the remote areas of their plantations to grow their own food. In my youth, one could see people on their donkeys going to mountain for breadfruit and ground provisions. We have to modernize the system, growing our own food in our backyard gardens or on any secure piece of land. What needs to be changed is the crop pattern; less emphasis on ground provisions and more on health foods, such as cabbage, spinach, okra, pumpkins and tomatoes. Most of these crops are easier to grow than ground provisions, though in the clayey areas, it may be necessary to bring in compost and manure. For the aged and those with limited space, containers such as banana boxes can be very useful.

Backyard gardening is but one aspect of our food production. Commercial farmers produce much more food for both local and regional consumption. At present, marketing is the problem in Trinidad, the main regional importer. It is in fact a long running saga. When regional markets are booming, everyone wants to be a ‘trafficker’, with little room for a centralized marketing agency. When, however, foreign exchange is scarce in the importing country, when traffickers, start getting robbed and drug trading as well as money laundering raise their ugly heads, then there is recourse to our Government. It is hard, however, for Government to deal with these issues without some kind of statutory body.

There is talk of cooperatives. But in SVG our experience is not exactly awe-inspiring. Indeed Hatoyama has argued that the reason why the Chinese and other Far Eastern people have prospered in business more than blacks is that they trust each other and cooperate, but we do not. It will be interesting to see how the current impasse is resolved. In all this, it should not be forgotten farmers are providing employment, not only for traffickers, but also for many others.

This brings us to agriculture’s third role. With environmental pollution increasing worldwide, a premium is being placed on greenery. SVG has it. Most tourists whom I have met have used the word IDYLLIC to describe our countryside. We have to ensure it remains in pristine condition. If we do not, we will lose our main attraction. We would have wasted the enormous resources we have put into building the Argyle airport. Farmers make their contribution to beautification by cultivating their fields in an orderly fashion. Nay, many go further and, with other groups, have lovely flower gardens, even planting and maintaining attractive hedges along the roadside. This is to be encouraged. Of course the Forestry Department and the Physical Planning Division also have major responsibilities in this respect.