Hard to get and harder to pay for

THE EDITOR: I read with interest and concern recent articles in local and international publications about the increasing price of food. I see chicken as a sort of marker, in other words, the price of chicken tells us what is going on in the rest of the economy.

Chicken is not only TT's most popular meat but it is also the most popular meat worldwide. As a longtime fan of Royal Castle, I think that its prices might even be a better marker because it also has to pay for flour, oil, etc, all of which are going up in price. For the Castle it's not just the knock-on effect on chicken of the growing cost of corn.

Bear with me as I am trying to frame an even deeper concern. Commodity prices caused by the Russia-Ukraine war are one thing but we also have to be concerned about the impact of the current bird flu and swine flu which threaten to be pandemics in their own right.

For example, Malaysia has banned the export of chicken. Additionally, I read that India is pulling back on its export of wheat due to an unusually hot and dry period which negatively impacted production (global warming?).

I don't believe it is or will simply be a matter of the price of food. Are we are also talking food shortages here? As a small-island state, can TT outbid bigger, richer countries when essentials are scarce? The answer is a big “no!” Where we grow our own food, we still import fertiliser (although I thought we were an exporter) and insecticide and the talk in town is that local farmers cannot afford to grow as many crops as before – in the same way that it is already harder for their colleagues to afford feeding the same amount of chickens.

I do not pretend to be an expert in these matters but I believe we are faced with something of a double-edged sword when it comes to food – we cannot get it and, when we do, we won't be able to afford it.

ERROL STOUTE

Diego Martin