November 17, 2023
The region is literally starving to death, so says the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). We cannot afford food, let alone quality and nutritious food. So how can we get healthy if we aren’t eating or are eating junk?
Some of these non-communicable diseases are linked to these junk foods that are processed with all types of artificial preservatives in them. The region is literally having a slow death. No one in the Western Hemisphere should be starving considering all of the arable land we have at our disposal and the amount of rural farmers we have among us. But here we are, millions of our people are going to be hungry.
It is no secret that inflation is killing us. We cannot afford good produce because the markets are trying to re-adjust to the post-COVID realities. Hopefully it will settle down in due time, but in the meantime, there are things we must do in the long term to ensure that we feed more of our people.
We need to invest in farming across the board. We need an agricultural cooperative for the Caribbean and Central America. We need a collective union that assigns certain crops to certain countries, give them duty free access to enter the markets made by us for us.
The European Union has the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), some people complain about it because they believe that their small production is worth more than someone doing things more efficiently. But, they are only operating on their own selfish thinking on how they want to protect their livelihood. This is where we need leadership to understand that breaking a few eggs is the only way to make an omelette.
Let’s be sober about things now.