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Reply to "JAgdeo coming to his senses that the PPP will not win come 2020"

Kari posted:
 

Only a people's movement can change the culture, as in 40 years from now Guyana will be exporting rice and timber and gold (and maybe oil) and importing everything else, including water, sugar and chicken. My goodness - what a future!!!

You are being generous.  If our rice continues to be expensive no one will buy it.  A political deal was made with Chavez, who was looking to oust the US from having influence in the Caribbean and Central America, so he concocted PetroCaribe. 

Well Venezuela is now broke, and its people are in the same position that Guyanese were in the mid 80s.  Worse off maybe as Venezuelans (aside from the elites) haven't migrated as much as Guyanese so there are no barrels to get.    The smuggling into Venezuela from Colombia and T&T cannot supply that nation as did similar smuggling into Guyana 30 years ago.

So rice farmers can wail and bawl as much as they wish but there will never be another deal that will subsidize the fact that Guyana is a high cost producer.  Its astonishing that Guyana lies in the midst of the biggest export market for rice, as Latin Americans eat it, but don't grow it.  But we can sell little of it as they can buy from cheaper sources.  Critical given that rice is a core food of the poor.  I don't think that the well heeled ladies of Ipanema, or Leblon in Rio eat it in huge amounts, as do the poor in favelas like Rocinha.

FM
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