Jamaica's response to looming food crisis
published: Friday | April 11, 2008

Dennie Quill, Contributor

As commodity prices soar and a barrel of oil reaches historic highs, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation has identified 36 'crisis countries', most of them in Africa. According to World Bank statistics, global food prices have risen by 80 per cent since 2005. Staples like rice (hit a 19-year-high in March), soybeans, corn and wheat have been climbing sharply with the result that chicken, eggs, meat and dairy products have become very expensive.

Food riots

Among the contributing factors - bad weather, biofuel alternatives, increased demand by growing populations in China and India and, of course, the price of oil.

Food riots have been taking place all over the world, including the Philippines, India and Mexico (tortilla protest), now it is happening next door in Haiti, where hungry persons have reportedly rushed the gates of the presidential palace seeking relief from the ongoing food crisis.

Need or greed

Reports coming out of our sister Caricom territory, Trinidad and Tobago, point to two recent incidents where truck drivers were ambushed and robbed of foodstuff including flour, peas, juice and milk. In the latest incident this week, 14 cases of foodstuff were taken at gunpoint and the delivery men battered. One is not sure if these incidents are fuelled by need or greed. However, in response to these incidents, the Trinidadian government has promised to do all in its power to reduce food prices.

If we believe the warnings from the experts, a global food catastrophe looms. For us here in the Caribbean, even a bad global situation can be made worse if we experience an active hurricane season this year, as is being predicted by meteorologists. Banana and plantain farmers are still reeling from the effects of last year's storms with the result that supplies continue to fall short of demand.

Even people who are fairly well off are experiencing agony at the cash register these days. The spike in the price of food is hurting the urban dweller even more than those in rural Jamaica. What kind of urban solutions can we find to the current crisis?

Food security

The most immediate answer is that households should start a campaign to plant more of the things we eat. The Government ought to put food security alongside national security at the top of the national agenda. Persons who utilise the land around their homes to grow vegetables and fruits should get some form of tax rebate as an incentive.

For those who have no land, I suggest that idle tracts of land be made available to those who are interested in farming small plots for their personal use. A peppercorn rent should be charged and the expertise of RADA should be put at their disposal.

Perhaps I am beginning to sound like an old worn-out record, but long ago I urged, no, pleaded with the powers that be, to revive the school farms of yore. Institutions like prisons, hospitals and schools should be growing most of what they eat. There was a time when many persons raved about the bread baked in prisons.

We have seen the price of bread soar, and for those who cannot afford it, the solution lies in finding alternatives. Bammy and breadfruit are suitable alternatives and they can be prepared in such a way that calorie watchers need not fear. We need to adapt our palates to local foods - yams, bananas, potato, coca, dasheen, etc.

Amazingly, Michael Manley's doctrine of self-reliance which was being preached in the 1970s has become relevant again. Back then there was a feeling that the politicos wanted to limit the people's choice and there was great resentment because the wealthy could not get a box of the latest cereal. Today, every imaginable cereal is on the shelves, but so many cannot afford them.

Hybrid rice

Over at the rice institute in the Philippines they are looking to the development of hybrid rice with higher yields to solve the looming food crisis. Are the minds at Jamaica House, the Scientific Research Centre and our universities thinking about Jamaica's response to this impending crisis?