By Sue-Ann Wayow
THE increasing food prices are causing people to eat less and some are going without proper meals daily as a result.
This is according to Member of Parliament for Oropouche West Davendranath Tancoo.
Speaking at the United National Congress (UNC) virtual report on Monday, Toncoo focused on the high import food bill adding that prices have increased for food grown locally as well.
“Prices have all gone up and these are agricultural products grown right here in Trinidad and Tobago and consumed in every home in this country,” Tancoo said.
He said long before Covid-19, food importers were complaining about shortage of foreign exchange which created credit difficulties for them and increased their transaction cost and therefore increased food imports.
Local farmers were also complaining pre-Covid-19 about poor infrastructure and the regular lost of their produce either by theft or through flooding, the MP noted.
Tancoo said, “It’s not that the government does not know it’s simply that they do not care. In January 2021, the Covid-19 food security and livelihood’s impact survey revealed that eight out of ten persons in the lowest income groups were jobless.”
He stated that every two out of ten admitted to skipping meals or eating less but in households with income listed as below or well below average, four out of ten persons were going without food, some for the entire day.
“The report found that many had resorted to selling their assets to meet their basic food needs, sacrificing education and future opportunities. Too many of our citizens are in desperate and worsening conditions,” he said.
Tancoo said, “It also revealed another startling fact that nine out of ten citizens were surviving at below or well below average income levels but had gotten no assistance ever from the government during this Covid-19.”
He said there have been recent announcements of pending food shortages globally and annual fees prices have already been increased twice in the last seven months by National Flour Mills (NFM).
“It signals that flour prices will increase soon things are likely to get even worse.”
And Tancoo questioned why the government has not used the opportunity for economic and financial planning by using the arable land and mass unemployment, high surplus liquidity in the financial sector, access to large food producers in markets like India, China and United States.
That would have been an opportunity to protect the agricultural sector, fix the infrastructure to invest in targeted food production to generate revenue, foreign exchange via import substitution and via export and to create sustainable employment.
