The Government of Dominica is apparent faced with the very difficult task of routing Dominica from the present economic crisis it suffers under. To compound the situation, this has to be done against the backdrop of soaring global food and fuel prices and there is also the unpredictable criminal element.
So how then will the leaders of our nature isle manage to stabilize the economy, soften the public impact from raising food cost and protect the citizens while doing so?
Government ministers have tried to quiet down those who have expressed concerns over these troubling issues by airing ways in which they intend to remedy the situation - to this date none of these remedies have proven fruitful.
One of the ideas being propelled by the government is that of the country should move in the direction of a self-sustaining agriculture programme; which I support a 110%. Recently, my friend and fellow blogger Danielle Edwards expressed the same opinion in her post entitled: Cooking up Local Remedies to stomach Rising Food prices.
People are being encouraged to return to the land by way of subsistence farming to secure food for themselves and their family. This, however, appears to be all that is being done even though a very worthy attempt was by the government to let people know that the task of sustenance does not solely belong to the government.
From the looks of it, the people of Dominica seem to be waiting for the problem to reach to point where it’s out of control before they can implement the suggestions of the government. We seem to have become so dependent on the government for solving our every problem that we refuse to be self-sufficient.
Agriculture is being branded as a by-product of slavery and is often described as a dirty job that has too much hard work associated with it. There are many people, however, who have proven agriculture provides hard but honest work and an investment that could provide very worthwhile returns. There is also the idea of creating backyard gardens is also being explored and the country’s minister of agriculture has been advocating of this type of land use.
In the industrialised world or what we refer to as the First World will be the first to benefit from any turn in events or when world economies stabilise once more, which is not predicted to occur for the next two years. This means we will still be victims to high food prices. Recently it was reported that gas prices had lowered, but did we feel this change? Meanwhile statistics are showing that the amount of money spent on imports ridiculously exceeds that of our exports.
I strongly believe that if Dominica gets busy developing its agricultural product this could well have other spin-off positive effects. We could well see a drastic change in the rate at which criminal activity is growing. Agriculture has the ingredients to develop discipline, patience, contentment and values which are the things which seem to be most lacking in our present society.
Agriculture could then present the Dominica Government with a win-win situation. Don’t you think? Let hear ‘em comments
