In his missive,
the Grenada-based scientist/development busybody reminded us of his “core
beliefs” which make a distinction between routinised reference to “food
security” and the more important goal of “nutrition security.”
In other words:
a goal not only to fill our bellies, but to make sure that whatever we’re
feeding ourselves is wholesome and healthy. “I am certainly not interested in
celebrating a reduction in our regional food import bill if that bill still
includes carbonated beverages and nutritionally empty calories,” he insists.
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| Plant pathologist/climate expert, Steve Maximay |
Think of the
non-communicable diseases – cardiovascular disease (including hypertension) and
diabetes.
The first time I
was forced to consider the important difference - having long latched on to the
doctrine of self-sufficiency in food production purely to counter rising food
import bills while staving off hunger - was through the counsel of retired
CARDI Executive Director, Dr Arlington Chesney nearly 20 years ago.
Regional
politicians had by then adopted the sovereignty dictum in response to growing
concern that in the event of a cataclysmic global event - A pandemic? War? - we
would be left at the mercy of underdeveloped capacity to meet domestic food
demand. Plus, there was the persistence of foreign currency outflows during
increasingly difficult economic times.
Dr Chesney
reminded us even back then that the concept of “food sovereignty” had also grown
to include an ability to purchase food not grown domestically. This was so as there
were few Caribbean countries possessing the capacity to produce all they
required - including those commodities for which we have acquired a demanding,
compulsive taste.
Take doubles, to
cite one example. Yes, the “dressings” are all largely indigenous concoctions,
but the main ingredients namely wheat flour and channa (chickpeas) are not
produced in T&T.
So, there should
be allowance for “tastes” and things we claim to be ours – but not to the
extent that undermines a valid concern about the large sums of money expended
every year to import the things we eat and drink.
Now unofficially
branded as “25-by-2030”, Caricom’s 25‑by‑2025 (25% reduction
in food imports by the year 2025) target was not met by a single member state mainly
because of domestic and imported needs and appetites.
The
tourism-dependent countries tell a huge part of the latter tale. But it’s not
the entire story.
Here in T&T,
where our food import bill is in the vicinity of TT$7.5 billion annually
(calculate 25% of that), there are some difficult questions to answer regarding
expenditure on imported food and the extent to which, as Maximay reminds us, we
are not simply aiming at satisfying caloric intake.
His concern is therefore
as much focused on “the food import bill” as it is on the achievement of
“nutrition security” as a strategy to counter the scourge of poor health and
all its attendant implications for productivity, social costs, and reduction in
the quality of life.
Regionwide, the
outlook is not much more promising. The effort to reduce/substitute reliance on
imports such as poultry and other meats, wheat flour, rice, soya and other
commodities can benefit from greater pooling of resources and redirecting of
productive efforts in the food sector.
The Caricom Agri-Food
Systems Strategy was designed specifically to address growing demand for these
commodities, and to meaningfully reduce the current annual bill of US$6
billion.
It is nothing
new that Caricom nations can benefit immeasurably from intra-regional
collaboration/rationalising by mutual consent to address the difficulty we have
with expenditure on extra-regional food imports. Import substitution is an
age-old mantra. Nutrition security is not.
In an ideal
world, we would have all been trading in our own currency (the single economy
component of the CSME) and making better use of single market conditions to
feed each other. Channa from Belize. And Guyana could have also supplied us
with wheat flour had its trial runs been successful. Hopefully they have not
given up completely.
Instead, there
prevails a foolish belief in a destiny that denies important building blocks of
the integration movement.
On the
particular question of food and nutrition security, it helps that important
producers such as Guyana, Suriname, and Belize are members of the family –
though their own 25-by-2025 aspirations were unsuccessful.
But there is a
structure and a rational pathway to collective success that should not be
abandoned.
Maximay’s alert
is worth heeding as a warning against the temptation to ignore healthy bodies
in exchange for full but unwell bellies.
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