Why is agriculture slowly loosing its vaule in the caribbean?

Question

Why is agriculture slowly loosing its vaule in the caribbean?

Answer 1

Because it is expensive to live in the Caribbean....  For a youngster in the Caribbean to move out of their parents house and take out a loan to goto college/university.  And then another loan to buy a US$200,000 (cheapest) home, and then another loan to buy a car (for transport) with it's huge cost of importation etc. the poor fellow will be in debt for life......

With the cost of agricultural products falling, you can no longer find people in the Caribbean that want to stand breaking their back in the hot hot Caribbean sun picking fruits and vegetables.  Instead now, the Caribbean islands are having to import much of their labour from Latin America where they will do the work for the lower wages.

The Caribbean used to have a deal with Europe where Europe would take a guaranteed amount of produce from their colonies but the United States got madd because it meant they couldn't sell as much to Europe so they sued at the world trade organisation on behalf of companies like Chiquita, Del Monte and Dole etc for Europe to dismantle their agrement with the Caribbean.

--

Source: See the "Lome Convention" on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lom%C3%A9_C...

--

So since then, some Caribbean farmers are being offered a lot more money by South American gangs to grow pot/hemp instead which fetches a far higher price then "usual" produce.

--

Source: Article: Kingstown Journal; An Outpost in the Banana and Marijuana Wars

Date: March 4, 1999

Source: New York Times

Link: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.ht...

When American troops helped destroy more than one million marijuana plants in December in the rugged northern regions of this island, growers were outraged. They protested on radio and in front of Government offices. They appealed to business and political leaders. They even started a petition drive to ask President Clinton for damages.

''The Americans are not showing any real concern for our economic and social development,'' said Junior Cottle, chairman of a group of marijuana growers who described himself as ''representative of the ganja man.''

Mr. Cottle said he did not grow marijuana but did smoke it.

Marijuana is not legal here. But its production in the remote mountains has, American officials said, taken off in recent years, making the island of St. Vincent the second largest grower in the Caribbean, after Jamaica.

Growers said they were turning to the crop to deal with an unemployment rate that is officially 20 percent but that many people here say is far higher.

The animosity directed at the United States comes from two directions. Residents have a feeling that Washington has abandoned this corner of the world, now that the cold war is over and it no longer sees a Communist threat in the Caribbean.

There is also a marked hostility against Mr. Clinton for waging war with Europe over banana trade preferences, the legitimate backbone of the economy.

The nub of the dispute is that Europe unfairly favors bananas grown by its former colonies, including this onetime British outpost, where English is spoken and cricket is a favorite sport. The preference discriminates against American companies that produce bananas, the United States says.

Officials here say removing the import protections would deal an economic catastrophe to countries that have little capacity to grow anything else and whose bananas are costly to grow. Some Government and business leaders say the United States risks undermining its anti-drug efforts in the region if banana growers turn to drugs -- not just marijuana, but also trafficking in Colombian heroin and cocaine as alternatives.[ . . . ]

--

The USA normally wouldn't care but a few of these drug gangs are planning to overthrow island governments and install their own regimes and also some of these drug gangs have announced they would like to form an alliance with the terrorist groups around the world in order to gain "protection" for their goods.  So you can see why the USA freaked out lately regarding the war on drugs...

The war on drugs will never be won...  You've got to just legalise it, in order to reduce the value of it...

******

Here you go there's an article from today on the same thing....

Article: Poor kids get pocket money in ganja fields

Date: Thursday, January 24th, 2008

Source: www.nationnews.com - Nation News Barbados

Link: http://www.nationnews.com/story/29083415...

KINGSTON – Scores of children – some from very poor families – across western Jamaica are being lured out of school to work in ganja fields, helping with the mass production of the narcotic drug for export.

The increase in ganja production over the past six years has kept Jamaica on the United States' "blacklist" as one of the major drug-producing countries.

"We have seen evidence to suggest that children are helping in the cultivation of the drug," head of the Narcotics Division, Senior Superintendent Carlton Wilson, told The Gleaner when reached yesterday.

His comment was supported by another senior officer who confirmed that "it is something that has been happening".

A number of farmers from western Jamaica who spoke with The Gleaner Tuesday, on condition of anonymity, also confirmed that children had been kept busy in the fields cultivating ganja.[ . . . ]

--

Article: Caribbean leaders addressing unprecedented threats to the region

Date: Published on Friday, January 25, 2008

Source: www.CaribbeanNetNews.com - Caribbean Net News

Link: http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/news-565...