Caribbean agriculture under three regimes: Colonialism, nationalism and neoliberalism in Guyana

Abstract

This article examines agricultural policy in Guyana during three periods: the colonial, the nationalist, and that of neoliberalism. The main argument is that such policies continue to reproduce the conditions in the rural sector that they purport to remedy. In many respects, the performance of the agricultural sector in the nationalist period in terms of output for important crops during the 1970s and 1980s outdid the production levels under economic liberalization, and indeed agricultural production stagnated since 2000. Agricultural policy in each period, it is argued, is essentially the same, focusing on solutions to identical problems. The difference, however, is that while the colonial and nationalist approaches embraced state-led measures, the neoliberal policies centre on market liberalization. Laissez faire is a marketization and not an agricultural development programme. Guyana and the Caribbean need to find ways to return to an agricultural development programme that inevitably requires the direction of the state.

Notes

1 The three regimes referred to in the title are economic as well as political.

2 Unemployment data on Guyana is unreliable and unavailable. Official estimates placed the unemployment level at 12.88% in 2004 [Government of Guyana, 2004]. Other estimates place the unemployment rate much higher.

3 The estimate poverty rate was 43% of the population living at US$1 per day [Gafar, 1998].

4 For Guyana, see Thomas [1984], Rodney [1981], Adamson [1972], and Greenidge [2001]. This is a common historical pattern elsewhere in the Caribbean [Mintz, 1960, 1990; Blouet, 1977; Craton and Walvin, 1970] and throughout Latin America [Duncan, Rutledge and Harding, 1977].

5 For a discussion on this issue, see Adamson [1972].

6 See Colonial Office [1953].

7 The PPP was led by Cheddi Jagan, and the PNC by Forbes Burnham. Although both co-founded the PPP in 1950, Burnham left the PPP five years later to establish the rival PNC. On this, see Hinds [2005], Mars [1998] and Ryan [1999].

8 For more on the issue of the new colonials and their role in the former European colonies see Nkrumah [1969] and Fanon [1967].

9 People of African ancestry in Guyana are a minority and those of East Indian lineage are in the majority. Thus, if voting in national elections follows strict racial lines, as it does, then who wins and who loses is a foregone conclusion, evidenced by the results of the Guyana national elections in 1957, 1961 and 1964, and again since 1992. To win power the leader of the PNC joined with the anti-communist forces, plunging Guyana into a civil war between Africans and East Indians from 1961 to around 1966 (the year of political independence). The PPP gained the largest amount of votes at the national elections in 1964, but lost to a coalition between the PNC and the United Force (UF) political party that formed the government in that year. Having won state power from the PPP as the senior partner in an anti-communist coalition with the UF, the PNC proceeded to take steps to establish itself as a ‘majority’ government. In time for the national elections in 1968, it changed the electoral laws to shift the powers of the Chairman of the National Elections Commission to a government minister, and introduced overseas voting, allowing Guyanese living abroad to vote in national elections. Between 1968 and 1985 the PNC perpetuated itself in political office through a series of fraudulent elections and a referendum. Furthermore, in 1980 it changed the Guyana Constitution that turned the country into a Republic, introduced the title of Executive President, and enshrined the latter in power for life.

10 In 1978 Walter Rodney, together with Clive Thomas, Rupert Roopnarine, Eusi Kwayana, Moses Baghwan and others, declared the Working People's Alliance (WPA) as a political party. Four years earlier, a number of political and cultural organizations – the African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa (ASCRIA), the Indian Political Revolutionary Associates (IPRA), the Working People's Vanguard Party (WPVP-ML), and Ratoon – had united to form the WPA. Based loosely on Marxist ideas, the WPA championed a multiracial platform as a means to overcome race affiliation that dominated the Guyanese political landscape.

11 Among the ways the PPP reinforces its power is the use for its own interests of the state-owned media established by its predecessor.

12 The Lomé Conventions I to IV, representing a set of trade and aid agreements that the European Union (EU) first signed with 48 of its former colonies in 1975, lasted until 2000. Lomé I centred inter alia on trade, export earnings from commodities, industrial cooperation, financial and technical cooperation, and provisions relating to services, payments, and capital movements and institutions. Lomé II contained innovations on Lomé I the most significant of which were the guarantee system for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) economies largely dependent on mineral exports, and a series of measures to develop the mining and energy potential of the ACP countries. Lomé III updated the agreement on agricultural cooperation and food security, drought and desertification, cooperation on agricultural commodities, fisheries development, industrial development, mining and energy potential development, transportation and communication, trade and services, regional cooperation, and cultural and social cooperation. Lomé IV, negotiated in two parts for a period of ten years from 1989 to 1999 (except finance reviewed in five-year terms), included increases in EU resources to ACP countries, and a system of support for structural adjustment policies. Lomé IV improved every aspect of ACP-EU trade arrangements including the rules of origin, access for agricultural products, fisheries products, etc. The Lomé trade arrangements involved both free access without reciprocity for almost all ACP's exports into EU markets and particularly favourable provisions for products such as sugar, rum, bananas, rice, beef and veal.

• The Cotonou Agreement replaced the Lomé Conventions between the ACP and EU. It seeks to promote and expedite the economic, cultural and social development of the ACP states, with a view to contributing to peace and security and to promoting a stable and democratic political environment. The partnership focuses on the objective of reducing poverty and eventually eradicating poverty consistent with the objectives of sustainable development and the gradual integration of the ACP countries into the world economy. The EU presents the Cotonou Agreement as a significant opportunity for developing countries to access European markets.

• The EBA is a development initiative adopted by the EU in February 2001 that grants duty-free access to imports of all products from least developed countries (LDCs) without any quantitative restrictions, except to arms and munitions.

• The Economic Partnership Agreement is an outgrowth of the Lomé Conventions between the EU and the ACP countries that fell into disrepute with the WTO when it ruled in favour of the US protests that the Conventions distorted free trade. The Cotonou Agreement (CA) is a temporary replacement of the Lomé Conventions that addresses WTO free trade concerns, and the EPA will replace the CA fully satisfying WTO's free trade rules. The EU also threw in everything but arms (EBA) development initiative in 2001 that grants duty-free access to imports of all products from least developed countries without any quantitative restrictions, except to arms and munitions. Only the EU imports of fresh bananas, rice and sugar were not fully liberalized immediately, products that matter most to the Caribbean. The Caricom countries began negotiating an EPA with the EU in 2004. The EPA negotiations are to conclude by the end of 2007, the same time that the current trade regime, that relies on a waiver granted by the World Trade Organization (WTO), expires.

13 For a discussion on this issue, see the Report of the West India Royal Commission [1945], commonly called the Moyne Commission.

14 For the obsession by British colonialism with the supposed ‘communism’ of the PPP, see the litany of accusations contained in the Constitutional Commission [Colonial Office, 1954: 35–8]. The Report of the latter is suffused with cold war rhetoric, as the following demonstrate: ‘we have no doubt that there was a very powerful communist influence within the P.P.P…leaders were directly associated with international communist or communist controlled organizations or with local branches of such organizations [etc., etc.]’. Like Senator McCarthy in the US, the Constitutional Commission [Colonial Office, 1954: 36] was even prepared to name a figure, declaring that at ‘the time of the elections at least six of the Party's most prominent leaders…accepted unreservedly the ‘classical’ communist doctrines of Marx and of Lenin: were enthusiastic supporters of the policies and practices of modern communist movements: and were contemptuous of European social democratic parties, including the British Labour Party.’

15 On this, see Henfrey [1972]. According to the latter source [Henfrey, 1972: 52], Guyana in the 1950s ‘was a classic case of underdevelopment, and of that term indicating not so much a total lack of development as a high degree of development of a very particular kind. The relevant facts speak for themselves. In an economy devoted mainly to primary production, over half the agricultural and almost all the mineral sectors were controlled by four expatriate corporations and one relatively small local sugar company. Between them, these accounted for an increasing proportion of exports, some 80 per cent by the late 1950s. Well over 50 per cent of the total still consisted of sugar and its by-products; these were almost wholly controlled by Booker Bros, McConnell and Co., whose London-based operations extended to almost every sector of the local economy. Bauxite and manganese were a further 25 per cent, Bauxite was mined by two companies, the Demerara Bauxite Co., a subsidiary of Aluminium Ltd (in which the US Alcoa has substantial interests), and the US Reynolds Metal Co. Manganese was mined exclusively by a US concern, Great Lakes Carbon Ltd.’ This pattern of resource ownership by foreign capital notwithstanding, the attitude of the colonial power at this conjuncture is accurately captured by patronizing tone found in the Constitutional Commission [Colonial Office, 1954: 24–25]: ‘We do not believe that there can ever be built up in British Guiana the El Dorado which the masses seem to believe can easily be obtained by a re-distribution of wealth…We were impressed by the friendliness and cheerfulness of people we met, but also by their naïvité and lack of appreciation of the economic realities of the situation.’

16 A reforming nationalist elected to power, President Arbenz wished to expropriate the vast reserve lands held on plantations in Guatemala by the United Fruit Company, so as to redistribute it to the poor peasantry and landless workers in the countryside [Roberts, 1972]. He too was accused of being a ‘communist’ and toppled from power in 1954, to be replaced by a US puppet [Schlesinger and Kinzer, 1982].

17 State capitalism in the Caribbean resulted from ‘the progressive expansion of the state into the system of economic reproduction’ with considerable effects on ‘the role of state property and state management in the economic system’ Thomas [1982: 12]. It involved the localization of 'the management of the transnational enterprises…[and pressuring]‘these corporations to go local by issuing their shares on the local market’[Thomas, 1982: 12–13]. It also involves ‘mortgage finance’ type nationalization of foreign enterprises where the government and the transnational corporation agree on a price for the nationalized entity. Two fundamental features of state capitalism in the Caribbean are first, the expansion of state property has nothing to do with building a socialist alternative, and second, ‘it leads to the progressive fascistization of the state’, such as in Guyana where the ruling class did not acquire power through a social revolution [Thomas, 1982: 13–14]. State capitalism in the region also took the form of state investment in direct production such as in Trinidad and Tobago that in this way established the largest state sector in the Caribbean.

18 For the importance of food availability to Caribbean countries and the resulting need for food security, see McIntosh and Manchew [1985].

19 This was in keeping with Latin American theories of dependency circulating from the development decade of the 1960s onwards, when import substitution – coupled with food self-sufficiency, agrarian reform and domestic market expansion – was seen as the path away from economic stagnation and underdevelopment prevalent in many Third World nations. For a discussion of this issue with particular reference to the Caribbean, see Oxaal [1975] and Hanley [1975].

20 The exchange rate between the Guyana dollar (G$) and the US dollar in 1976 was G$2.6 = US$1. The average exchange rate for the Guyana dollar between 1993 and 2003 was G$195.5 = US$1.

21 The object was to introduce a new oil seed that matured in three to four months, to intercrop with the coconut that takes a long time to mature and requires heavy financing for large-scale production.

22 The government planned to ‘expand production of rice crops by increasing acreages and improving yields; increase production of plantains and ground provisions (cassava, yams, eddoes, etc.); expand production of corn and other crops which are used for livestock production; (and) produce more market gardening crops e.g. tomatoes, legumes, pepper, pumpkins, etc.’ Furthermore, the government mounted a policy to embark on the re-establishment of ‘orchards in order to produce more fruits, e.g. mangoes, citrus, billimbi, carambola, cherries, guava, sapodilla, etc., and link this with the development of the honey industry.’ The aim was also to ‘rehabilitate existing coffee and cocoa groves and revive coffee and cocoa production.’ The government encouraged everyone ‘to plant a kitchen garden or some economic crop or raise some livestock’, and urged every school to develop ‘an efficiently organized farm’ and to become ‘fully involved in the agricultural drive.’ See Hoyte [1979: 7–8].

23 In furtherance of these aims, the PNC government proposed to do specific things. First, to provide proper marketing arrangements, including suitable ‘pricing policies and a mechanism for prompt payment for produce.’ Second, to put in place ‘efficient arrangements for easy access to credits from the banking institutions.’ Third, to ensure the availability to farmers of ‘adequate storage, drying, refrigeration, and transportation facilities.’ And fourth, to ensure the establishment of ‘suitable land tenure and related arrangements…to ensure that farmers (and landlords and middlemen) reap the full benefit of their labour.’

24 The strategy aimed to link agriculture with industrial and technological development. The policy outlined for agricultural development included very specific measures. These involved the improvement in ‘the land base for farming by better sea and river defence and by better drainage and irrigation.’ Examples provided of initiatives in the fulfilment of this policy were the Mahaica/Mahaicony/Abary, Tapacuma, and Black Bush drainage and irrigation projects. The policy focused on the upgrading and developing of ‘feeder roads to give access to farmers and facilitate the bringing out of crops.’ Furthermore, it had a rural housing policy component that integrated ‘housing facilities more closely with farms to improve husbandry practices and reduce loses through theft.’ See Hoyte [1979: 8–14].

25 Further policy initiatives aimed at ‘developing around the coconut industry a network of manufacturing activities; e.g. cushions, mattresses, mats, articles of clothing (from the fibre); buttons, ornaments, souvenirs and articles for household use (from the shell); coconut butter, confectionery (from the meat).’ Furthermore, the government also planned to link ‘the production of livestock with the production of fertilizers (manure) and also with manufacturing activities, e.g. tanning of hides, manufacturing of leather articles (belts, handbags, sandals, ornaments, souvenirs etc.) and in particular booths and shoe products.’ Finally, it planned to link ‘cotton production with the manufacture of textiles and the further development of the garment industry.’

26 The strategy outlined in the ERP was ‘to promote export-oriented growth, first by increasing output in the traditional sectors (bauxite and rice) and second by establishing the basis for a diversification of the economy’[Government of Guyana, 1988: 9].

27 This and the following quotations are all in the ERP programme [Government of Guyana, 1988].

28 The ERP required that GUYSUCO develope separate financial accounts for the other agricultural activities it had diversified into in order to ascertain the profitability of its diversification programme. If these programmes turned out to be unprofitable, GUYSUCO was to have discontinued them from 1989.

29 Measures designed to achieve these objectives included not just research but also extension and water management; a review of the rice pricing mechanism; the provision of appropriate resources and incentives for secondary, tertiary, and field level irrigation; the strengthening and repair of infrastructure; and the provision of technical support services. Other policy measures included a review of the arrangements with respect to exports by the private sector; a review of the adequacy of sector-wide quality milling, transportation and storage capacity; improvement in the institutional arrangement for collecting drainage charges; and a review and adjustment of irrigation and drainage charges.

30 For a similar policy objective in the case of Chile, see Murray [1997; 2003].

31 This issue – the dynamics structuring the process of agrarian transition – has been the subject of extensive debate in this journal. For a review of recent theory, see Brass [2007].

32 In the period between 1991 and 1997, employment in the public sector declined by 45%, in the bauxite operations at Linden and Berbice it went down by 43% and 30% respectively, and in the sugar industry the decline was 35%.

33 During the first half of the 1930s, the return to the land by those expelled from urban employment was particularly marked in the case of the US, a process described thus: ‘Perhaps the most dramatic result of the Great Depression is the increase in the number of farms and in the farm population. Throughout the 1920s, the number of farms had been slowly declining, though a bit more rapidly in the latter half of the decade than in the earlier. The total decline was about 160,000 farms, or 2.5 per cent. In the five years from April 1930, to January 1935, there was the largest 5-year increase in over half a century: 523,702 farms, 8.3 per cent more than in 1930. In fact, it was a larger gain than in a number of 10-year periods…This sharp gain in the number of farms was owing in large measure to a flight from the cities and their economic insecurity…The urban emigrees hoped at least for subsistence’[Brunner and Lorge, 1937: 4–5].

34 For a discussion of the role of the state in enforcing neoliberal policies, with reference to rural Colombia, see Brittain [2005].

35 Import substitution industrialization (ISI) in Latin America and elsewhere was associated with tariff barriers erected around ‘infant industries’ to protect them from foreign competition [Prebisch, 1949]. Lewis [1954] also promoted import substitution industrialization to absorb surplus labour in Third World economies.

36 Conversely, when a bumper harvest occurred, and prices fell due to a glut, the Marketing Board would buy up the surplus and store it, again stabilizing agricultural prices and income.

37 While economic liberalization forces open the market for agricultural produce in less developed countries, is an open secret that metropolitan capitalist nations (the US and European countries) do not allow a free market to operate in their own agriculture because of the massive subsidies and protection given to farmers. Where the US is concerned, subsidies to and protection of its farmers take multiple forms: these include the dumping of agricultural produce, food aid to poor countries, tax breaks on agricultural inputs, and restrictions on imports of agricultural commodities [Petras and Veltmeyer, 2001, 2003; Petras, 2003, Davis, 2003; Oxfam, 2005].

38 Guyana is one of the few countries with a negative population growth rate, due to outmigration as erstwhile peasants seek better employment prospects in neighbouring countries such as Brazil, Venezuela, Suriname, Cayenne, and in the Caribbean islands (including the Netherlands Antilles). Mexico provides further evidence of the link between economic liberalization, its impact on peasant economy, and outmigration. For some of the reasons behind the northwards migration to the US to find employment there as farm labourers, see the volume edited by Washbrook [2007].

39 Coconut production in the 2000s is below what it was between 1970 and 1973. Coffee production in 2005 was below what it was throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The production of maize in 2000 was below the level attained in 1975. The production of roots and tubers never attained the levels they attained in the 1970s and 1980s. The production of dry peas never regained its levels between 1974 and 1988. Groundnut production was below its 1993 level, and tomatoes below the level between 1979 and 1986. The production of vegetables was below their 1988 levels, and the output of plantains was below what it was 1970–73, 1977–78, and 1983–88. In 2005, the production of oranges was below their levels between 1970 and 1988, and pineapple output below what it was between 1986 and 1988.

40 According to the INCSR, the scale of money laundering in Guyana is large relative to the size of the country's economy, with some experts estimating that the informal economy is 40–60% of the formal sector. The report concluded as follows: ‘Money laundering has been linked to trafficking in drugs, firearms and persons, as well as corruption and fraud. Drug trafficking and money laundering appear to be propping up the Guyanese economy.’

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dennis Canterbury

The author wishes to thank Henry Veltmeyer, International Development Studies, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada, for comments on an earlier draft of this article, and Tom Brass, editor of The Journal of Peasant Studies, for the helpful suggestions on how to improve its content. Thanks also to the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID) for the opportunity to present an earlier version of this article at its annual conference held at York University, Ontario, Canada in 2005.