Food security is one of the most pressing global issues because food, obviously, is one of the necessities of life and without it mankind could not survive.
In recent times it has come under greater focus because of the climate change phenomenon and increased natural disasters which severely threatens agricultural production and, by extension, food security.
Today, despite tremendous improvements in science and technology hunger still affects millions of people around the world.
According to FAO, Latin America and the Caribbean was able to reduce the incidence of hunger from 54 million people in 1990 to 47 million in 2005.
Between 2006 and 2009, 15 years worth of progress was reversed due to rising international food prices and the economic and financial crises.
Access to food is the region’s Achilles’ heel; in a region that is a net producer and exporter of food, hunger exists because the most vulnerable sectors lack the necessary financial means to access it.
Another equally important issue is food safety. Millions of people die every year around the world due to food-borne diseases. Safety is also key to maintaining the viability of international exports and interregional food trade.
It is therefore clear that food security is not only dependent on producing adequate amounts of food but also on affordability, accessibility and hygienic and food safety standards.
In our region, one of the most serious problem is the extremely high food importation bill, estimated to be some US$3 billion annually, even though we have the capacity to be self-sufficient in food. This has been an issue much talked about but, apart from a few countries, nothing very tangible has been done to address it.
President Donald Ramotar in his capacity as head for Agriculture, Agricultural Diversification and Food Security in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), plans to lead talks with key regional stakeholders on priority actions in agriculture.
Optimistic that the region has the resources and the potential to curtail the alarmingly high bill that it pays on food imports on an annual basis, the President was perturbed that the obstacle remains unresolved.
“Our food import bill is huge, even though we have most of the resources to guarantee our own food security and supply. The more than US$3B that leaves our region each year could be put to productive use to improve our people’s lives,” President Ramotar said.
In addition to production, distribution, prices and food safety standards, there is also a very serious obstacle to achieving self-sufficiency in food in the region which has not been given much attention.
And that is the attitude of our people. For too long our people have been too foreign minded and unfortunately have a mistaken belief that food produced in foreign countries are superior to what we produce locally. In a few instances this may be so but in the overwhelming majority of cases our locally produced food is far superior to the imported ones.
It is so disappointing to see Guyanese go into a supermarket and would choose a foreign juice instead of a locally produced one which, by no means of measurement, is superior to the foreign one.
The irony is that you will rarely see a foreigner buy locally produced food item. He/she will almost always look for a product that originated from his/her native country. That is the kind of patriotic fervor people in this region need.
Therefore, a lot more has to be done to educate and re-orient our people towards the consumption of locally produced food.
The days of banning and coercing and forcing people not to consume imported food are over. It has to be done through education and inculcating a sense of patriotism and loyalty to one’s country.