Part 3

Ganja Monopoly-Corporate Enslavement and Food Insecurity 

By Kwame Nkosi Romeo

Finally, Part 3 encapsulates the ALP's shortcomings, lack of planning for the twin-island nation's agriculture and sustainable development goals, corrupting concessions to affluent businesses, and leaving the country with economic paralysis.

Part 3

Not only in Mexico but in many countries, GMO seeds have increased on the market along with more than 95% of GMO foods currently consumed locally, compounds health issues. Cornell University researchers did an in-depth study on the effects of genetically engineered corn from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) on the Monarch butterflies. 

The study established, "Its pollen kills monarch butterfly larvae in laboratory tests.." (Cornell Chronicle - Toxic pollen from widely planted, genetically modified corn can kill monarch butterflies, Cornell study shows by Blaine Friedlander April 19, 1999).

This contamination occurs with GMOs polluting non-GMOs. 

So what is the Ministry of Agriculture's policy regarding the nation's vital food supply?

That said, there is no priority for Antigua and Barbuda's food security, only land grabbing for specious investment while using the Ukraine-Russia war as an excuse for the nation's food shortcomings. The government's lack of strategy in agriculture is the primary cause of the nation's continuing food insecurity.

The ALP's sole strategic plan seems to depend on mortgaging our food products to other countries while Ganja as a quick fix cash crop, CIP, and public land sell-off are prioritized.

The nation's farmers can grow the food needed but need funding, better technology, government support, and organic products to supply the best possible outcome as outlined in the FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31:

 "..seeks to support the 2030 Agenda through the transformation to more efficient inclusive, resilient and sustainable agri-food system for better production, environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind."

Currently, local farmers cannot grow Hemp; at the same time, importing hemp products is normalized worldwide. Local farmers are left behind by government restrictions on farming and manufacturing Hemp products. 

A broker can connect local Hemp producers to international research and development biopharmaceutical companies' sources to derive maximum revenue. Also, farmers who supply the nation's food should be given priority to grow Ganja and profit in the same manner as Grow Antigua and not be disempowered.

Farmers can sell these hemp products globally if the delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) concentration is less than 0.3 percent. Hemp products are regular, so why is there a restriction on growing, producing, and marketing Hemp?

A lack of investment in Antigua and Barbuda's agriculture dates back decades. For example, under the ALP government budget, 2015 - 2022 total of US$3,655,555,555 billion (b) (EC$9.87 b), agriculture was allocated US$51,771,070 million (m) (EC$139,781,889 m) or 1.416%.

In 2018 tax waivers given to affluent businesses amounted to US$122,222,222 (EC$330m) or 3.343% of the 2015-2022 national budget. Worse, it represents a bloodsucking 27.05% of the 2018 budget! This concession was documented in the 2019 Budget with new taxes to compensate for the reckless giveaway. In this period, the Gini coefficient was a terrifying 82.3%, and health expenditure (% of GDP) 4.44. Both poverty and health go hand in hand and add to the economic paralysis of the nation.

From 2010 to 2014, the UPP average spending on health was 5.54%, whereas ALP 2015 to 2019 averaged 4.91%. Preceding these figures, UPP recorded a low of 4.19% in 2009 and a high of 5.87% in 2014. In 2015, the ALP recorded a high of 5.28 and a low of 4.44% in 2019. 

In 2019, ALP health expenditure was the second lowest in CARICOM, below the average of 7.88% for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), much lower than Heavily Indebted Poor Countries' 4.6% and worse than Haiti's 4.73% in 2019! (WHO Global Health Expenditure Database)

Today, it's excessively worse as food insecurity and poverty grow.

Yet six months before the election, Agriculture minister Samantha Marshall proposes an imaginary plan to assist farmers' markets as a superficial effort:

 "..to improve upon the poor relationship between farmers and CMC" -Daily Observer October 4, 2022 -Plan to restructure and improve CMC, minister says Carlena Knight.

The budgetary allocation for agriculture was US$6,333,333 (EC$17.1m) in 2016 -2.1325% of the average (US$6,471,384m) over the eight years. Still, no transformation occurred with the phantom of US$1,851,852m (EC$5m), and neither was an FAO agriculture census done since 2007. In opposition, farmers singled out ALP's deceitfulness six years earlier. 

In the 2016 Budget Speech, under the caption Improving Agriculture (page 33), prime minister Gaston Browne declared:

"Funding will be made available through the Antigua and Barbuda Development Bank for the development and expansion of the farming sector. Finally, we have allocated over US$1,851,852m ($5 million) to purchase equipment and transform the Central Marketing Corporation (CMC) into a national food emporium, providing a ready market for fresh produce and meats of local farmers and fishermen."

It is beyond question that ALP government expenditure accounts for 19.34% of the nation's GDP and ranks 67 out of 161 countries. According to the World Bank's scathing indictment of the ALP, the world average is 17.91%: "For that indicator, we provide data for Antigua and Barbuda from 1993 to 2020. The average value for Antigua and Barbuda during that period was 17.42 percent in 2006 and a maximum of 22 percent in 2002. The latest value from 2020 is 19.34 percent. For comparison, the world average in 2020 based on 161 countries is 17.91 percent."

Antigua and Barbuda Government spending, percent of GDP - data, chart | TheGlobalEconomy.com

Yet prime minister Gaston Browne was in denial of the fiscal problem existing in 2017 by minimizing and misinterpreting that imbalance in the 2018 Budget: "..that at 22 percent of GDP, Governments expenditure is not the source of the fiscal imbalance. The main cause is to improve the revenue yields."

What do you think Browne did?

In 2018 revenue accelerated, and Browne gave away US$122,222,222m (EC$330m)

in concessions to affluent businesses, and in 2019 increased taxes on the backs of the poor to compensate for that shortfall. 

This illegal spending is scandalous, plummeting the nation into poverty. More than that, the shameful treatment of local people will continue unless the spark of revolutionary change is lit to actualize its goals and stop ALP from selling off the people's land, exploiting labor, and destroying people's financial capital. The government needs to adhere to the 1987 World Commission on Environment Development defining sustainable development:

"Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs"

That's not so in Antigua and Barbuda; greed absorbs ALP politicians, and this piggishness will bring about the government's downfall.

Now is the time for a change of government! Ensure it happens.

Changes will come when it is too harsh to resist.

Bombshell

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery

None but ourselves can free our minds

Redemption song - 1980 Bob Marley