On going back to basics

By Matthew Woolford

Sometimes, to gain ripe perspective, one must stand on the outside of a situation to observe what is taking place within it. This is one of the benefits I have recently gained from listening to the St Vincent Times News on YouTube, presented by journalist Ernesto Cooke.

Some of the topics discussed include crime and our growing appetite for violence, political indecisiveness in matters both urgent and important, and the need for better food security for both physical and economic health. Since the first two have probably already been beaten to a proverbial death through conversations across our diaspora, I shall attempt to focus my writing on the third.

When I was 21 years old and still at university, I lived an active lifestyle running 5K races, swimming and doing martial arts of one kind or another. Now at 39, I am growing in awareness of the need to intentionally manage my weight, diet, and time, to do what I must to survive. This is why an internet posting on artificially ripened bananas recently got my attention.

When I was a child, we took fruit for granted because it was everywhere, or so it seemed, and we always ate it in season. Christmas was never celebrated in July in those days, but when it followed Advent in the month of December, we would get our first taste of apples, pears, and grapes for the year.

Growing up in Morvant, we also had a large yard laden with trees of all varieties. Guava made great juice and coconut had great water and jelly. We also had plums, avocado, lime and then lemon, rose and hibiscus, pawpaw, and banana.

We even had a calabash tree which had a low-hanging branch that my brothers and I used to swing from when we wanted to play ‘Tarzan’. It was fun and healthy to climb some of these trees, taste and see that their fruit was good.

At the Caribbean Food and Beverage Trade Event in 2023, then Minister of Trade and Industry Paula Gopee-Scoon, shared, “Trinidad and Tobago has consistently produced a yearly average of TT$2.53 billion in food and beverage exports from 2018 – 2022… Notwithstanding these export figures, our food import bill continues to be of concern remaining in the range of TT$6 billion.”

The solution to this challenge may be hidden in a past that we are sometimes too hesitant to revisit. I accept that the shadows of slavery and colonialism may be bitter pills for some to swallow, but as Kahlil Gibran wrote in The Prophet, “Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.”

According to Dr Eric Williams in From Columbus to Castro, “The Commission (British West Indian Royal Commission of 1897) recommended the growth locally of more of the food that was imported and greater attention to the fruit trade. It further recommended agricultural and industrial education, and a department of economic botany to assist the small proprietors…”

On the then challenges to this reality, Williams wrote, “The obstacle was the mercantile creditor in England, to whom the crops were remitted to give him a commission in addition to his interest. ‘The sale of timber, rice, and corn, finding a market at the door, or near at hand, would be of no advantage to him, beyond the mere interest of the capital he has at stake… The second reason was that the sugar planter maintained a tenacious hold over the entire economy. Not only did his backward methods represent a considerable loss in terms of sugar production, but he further penalized the economy by retarding, through his control of idle latifundia, the full potentialities of alternative crops. The Jamaican sugar plantations comprised 266,903 acres, of which only 24,785 were in cane—nine out of every ten acres were lying idle. The eighteenth-century mentality dominated here, as elsewhere…”

It seems that decisions imposed on us from abroad over a century ago are unfortunately still going unchallenged today as many states within the Caribbean have found it difficult to migrate from the single-crop economic model. It seems to be either tobacco, sugar, bananas, or oil but never all.

Personally, I think individual and collective self-determination is long overdue. Where there are economies of scale to be gained, I see no problem in partnership; where there is a clear competitive advantage, I see no problem in going alone.

Some of the benefits I foresee for Trinidad and Tobago of a more intentional thrust in agriculture include a lower grocery bill, an increase in meaningful employment and a possible means of rehabilitation for prisoners and disenchanted youth.

Additionally, I foresee a restitching of the fabric of our society through sharing. Excess fruit may always be given to a neighbour, and it makes for great conversation.