Ascribing a new urgency to food security
Editorial
IF SMALL developing nations are to learn one thing from the new gospel of global capitalism, it would be the imperative of producing quality goods at competitive prices. With this basic philosophy, Guyanese and other regional states in the business of food production and food processing would come to the sharp realisation that it is not a country's amazing array of natural wealth and potential that would bring about prosperity in dollar terms, but the skilful and effective management of that potential. The recent thrust by the political administration to re-sensitise Guyanese to the economic sense of buying and utilising local food items as against buying foreign commodities and squandering valuable foreign exchange has focused minds wonderfully. While numerous imported food items are excellent products in their own right, a good many items are just on the display shelves because of their slick packaging and marketing, and when compared pound for pound, or ounce for ounce with local products, some items may be quite inferior. Who can argue truthfully that items such as corn curls and certain imported beverages are better nutritional buys than perhaps plantain chips and a non-aerated drink made from a combination of passion fruit and golden apples? Yet the kindergarten and prep school pupils just reach naturally for the imported items which are aggressively promoted by minds trained in the psychology of marketing. What is also astounding is the fact that the children-friendly imported treats are sometimes sold in this country cheaper than the prices demanded by local food and beverage manufacturers for comparable products. That is one of the crippling spin-offs of globalisation. Efficient, cost-effective production enables manufacturers of one country to deluge another country with goods at a price that would make the importing country abandon its manufacturing efforts in frustration. Yet, Guyana's farmers and food manufacturers would be submitting to defeatism if they allow themselves to be overwhelmed by the spectre of globalisation. The answer to this phenomenon lies in small businesses linking with others to cut certain costs while maximising skills, upgrading communication and transportation systems, re-calibrating technologies, and re-training workers to complement the functions of new systems. According to statistics, Caribbean territories collectively import over US$1 billion in food and beverages each year. With the agricultural potential of the comparatively more developed territories like Guyana, Jamaica and Cuba, why can't a fraction of this import bill be utilised in processing technologies for the manufacturing of food items? Jamaica's food chain Grace Kennedy, which has canned from fish tea to ackee and marketed them in the Caribbean as well as in North America and Europe, has shown how creative and profitable food processing could be. If similar food manufacturing strategies are successfully adopted in Guyana and perhaps Cuba and Belize, the region would then begin to reverse a situation in which foreign manufacturers consign tons of food products to the Caribbean and pocket hard currency for their efforts. Not only would the territories have the comfort of food security, the haemorrhage of foreign exchange for food and beverages would be reduced to a mere trickle. 
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