First published in The Tribune on Thursday, April 17, 2008 under the byline, Young Man's View.
THE skyrocketing food prices in the Bahamas and our over dependence on imported food increases the likelihood of our country tinkering on the brink of a food crisis.
Over the last five years, the escalation in the price of oil has had a trickledown effect on the cost of food which has left Bahamians saddled with more bills and grim financial outlooks.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, food prices across the globe have risen by 45 per cent. In a recent appearance on the morning television show Bahamas at Sunrise, local economist Rupert Pinder claimed that food has been marked up by 200-300 per cent in the Bahamas. This is flabbergasting!
“The Bahamas is really a small open economy, small in the sense that we are very dependent on the outside world in terms of trade and imports. The country has an importing economy, as 80% of what we consume is imported,” Mr Pinder said.
Mr Pinder also suggested that the taxes being applied to basic commodities are driving up the cost of living.
For many years, consecutive governments have pursued an ill-advised singular economic model that is reliant on foreign investment—tourism and the financial sector—while slighting agricultural development as if it was not a priority. These days, although there are large quantities of unused crown land, our governments’ apparent condescension for farming and agribusiness has fostered apathy for farming among the citizenry.
Today, age has caught up with the remaining, yet greatly diminished group of Out Island farmers, and thus far the government has done little to encourage local food production and recruit youngsters to enter the field.
Indeed, beyond the fact that the Bahamas has no real influence on world economic affairs, it is in part the fault of our governments why we continue to be a dependent price-taker. With the explosion of food prices, the Bahamas is an economically undiversified country facing a looming crisis!
According to food agencies around the world, the hike in food prices is due to mounting oil prices, a population boom in developing countries, drought and floods associated with global warming and an increased demand for bio-fuels/alternative energy. Furthermore, World Bank statistics suggest that world food prices have shot up by 80 per cent since 2005, which is disastrous for our needy country that has its currency pegged to the ever plummeting US dollar. When compared to the 1990s, a dollar purchases far less.
While other countries have heavily invested in their agricultural sector, Bahamian governments have dilly-dallied and wanted to be fed by international producers. Moreover, the rising cost of energy amplifies our dependency on imports, because the cost of transport and bloated freight rates are being passed on to consumers. How can we realistically consider ourselves to be a truly independent nation when we depend on foreign countries for everything?
Prescott Smith, a social activist and president of the Bahamas Sportfishing and Conservation Association, blames our economic model and the local merchant elite for the Bahamas’ failure to nourish our agricultural industry. Mr Smith asserts that “a few merchant who would prefer to maintain total economic control by the continuation of us being dependent on imports at the expense of us feeding ourselves is one of the main reasons for very high food prices in The Bahamas. The Governments over the years have lacked the true will to encourage and support agriculture in a real way to reduce imports and a dependency with regards to us feeding ourselves.
“As I have looked back over the period of 90 plus years we continue to follow the same Eurocentric model and that is the reason we don't see the real changes that are needed to move us forward. Most of our leaders have been mis-educated in having very little confidence in black Bahamians to really be able to make a real difference in moving us to real changes of which we so badly need,” he said.
In addressing food prices and the local farming industry, the Nassau Institute’s Rick Lowe espouses another view, stating:
“The prices in the food stores in Florida are even shocking. With all the special equipment and fertilisers available today, farming is much easier than years gone by, yet the number of farmers is declining. I categorically do not believe that we can be self sufficient in food. It's a pipe dream.”
Locally, consumers are not getting value for money. Breadbasket items such as flour, butter, cheese and canned goods have all been outrageously priced. The cost of living has exploded as marine products, processed vegetables and fresh fruits have been increased between December 2005, and December 2006.
On Wednesday, Eulamae Gordon, the chief price inspector at the Department of Consumer Affairs, told me that the government’s purview on price control is limited to certain items. According to Ms Gordon, the maximum retail and wholesale prices of breadbasket items such as cooking oil, flour, grits, margarine, mayonnaise, rice, sugar, cheese, butter and tomato paste is calculated and monitored by price control. Ms Gordon’s comments come amidst allegations of price gouging and the selling of expired products by local merchants.
It appears that in the midst of already soaring prices, some retailers/wholesalers have brazenly flaunted in the face of price controls and bilked already suffering consumers, whose earnings are not comparable to the higher cost of living. Gone are the days when E J Bowe’s name and relentless vigilance put fear in the hearts of crooked shopkeepers and brought issues of price control to the forefront! Since Mr Bowe’s departure, the consumer protection arm of the Ministry of Lands and Consumer Affairs has seemingly been quiescent. As a child, I remember hearing of the trepidation of storeowners when E J Bowe and his team were said to be visiting Long Island.
Astoundingly, price inspector Ms Gordon claims that beyond the aforementioned products and goods such as baby cereal, baby formula, baby food, fresh milk, broths, soups (except spaghetti), powdered detergents, canned fish, soaps and mustard, which can only be marked up 23 per cent on a merchant’s landing price, price control is handicapped as it is unable to reduce or prevent an increase in breadbasket items. Price controllers are also limited since oil, production costs and other mitigating factors have risen and influence overhead costs.
Surprisingly, Ms Gordon claims that bread, which is now more than three dollars, doesn’t fall under price control regulations since “the Price Control Act of 1971 gives the ingredients that make bread as flour, yeast and water, but bakers add calcium and other substances to remove it from our purview. This act should be amended to include more institutions and more food stuffs."
Essentially, the Price Control Commission, which seems to be in hibernation, is relegated to merely ensuring that the price of a short list of food stuffs is obeyed and serves as a watchdog for unscrupulous importers who price goods beyond the 23 per cent mark up, a mission that should have long resulted in many storeowners being hauled before the courts.
In addressing the hike in food prices, Prescott Smith opined:
“With regards to the costly items in the stores locally I can say that most everything imported has shot up tremendously. I saw one bottle of orange juice that other day in North Andros for $5.95 and that would mean that a gallon of orange juice would cost over twenty dollars. This is an example of how high the cost of food has shot up. They reduce the size of many of the containers to support the higher prices, so you are paying more in some cases for smaller containers.”
Agriculture is a sleeping giant. In a recent daily report, veteran farmer PA Strachan says that “this country does not eat the food it grows, nor does it grow the food it eats.” This is true since the Bahamas has no food security and is a nation where Bahamians have adopted an inferiority complex and reject local preducts for foreign items.
Why hasn’t any of our governments’ encouraged sustainable development? The sun, sand and sea are omnipresent features that will always attract tourists, but what have we done to internally sustain ourselves? In these times, a visionary government should encourage food production, instead of spending $300 million each year on imported food. Surely, we would starve if an earth-shattering event disrupts our food imports!
During my upbringing on Long Island, I observed that my grandparents were self-sufficient and rarely bought farm goods such as tomatoes, cabbages, onions, peppers, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, water melons, cassava, yams, citrus fruits, pigeon peas/bean and mangoes.
Frankly, these products, along with seafood and mutton, were almost never purchased. It has been an adjustment, to sometimes buy dillies, guineps and tamarinds from street vendors here, since picking these fruits in backyards—without charge—remains an aspect of everyday island life.
I can vividly remember “shucking” and roasting or boiling corn! Farming activity has been reduced with age and the lack of government support for farmers. Nonetheless, I am appreciative to have been raised on an island and taught self-sufficiency, since making food stuffs such as bread or cooking is more economical than relying on bakeries for bread or foreign/local franchises for fast food during these economically gloomy times.
In Nassau it appears that the only way residents can access fresh vegetables/fruits is directly from the few remaining farms, the Produce Exchange, organic stores and a small number of stores, particularly petty shops. Soon, many Nassauvians will once again have to resort to backyard gardens.
In addressing the high food imports, Prescott Smith says:
“With regards to the Government limiting imports this can only be done with the encouragement of us growing our own food."
"We also need to be able to take the food grown and produce end products like canning the tomatoes and cucumbers and the many other products we can grow in this country. From what I see in Andros we are capable of growing the items, but where we fall into huge problems with Bahamians is they have never had any real help on the business end of things. There has not been real help brought to bare in this key areas, and again from my observation this is encourage by the controlling elites to keep economic controls in the hands of the few. Most of our leaders have sold out for there own personal gains and have been mis-educated on the other hand to believe that we can truly do very little else in this regard,” he said.
The government must encourage farmers and food production by expediting the requests of qualifying persons for crown land; developing a agricultural curriculum for schools; constructing and repairing packing houses; granting loans through the Bahamas Development Bank; placing higher tariffs on crops that are imported into the Bahamas but that are locally grown; encouraging the sale and use of Bahamian crops in the supermarkets and in local restaurants/hotels; providing more efficient transport to market as many goods rot in packing houses while waiting for weekly mail boats; granting tax allowances on machinery and assisting in the purchase of seeds; fostering farmers markets and assisting in the development of irrigation schemes.
With increasing inflation, Bahamians had better learn to produce food before we have to join rioting Haitians in eating grass and mud pies.
Wake up Agriculture and Marine Resources minister Larry Cartwright, wake up!
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