GUEST COLUMN: Water, food and Guyana

BY KEN HEWITT

IN RECENT TIMES, water, food and Guyana have separately occupied the attention of the media but they seem to occupy my mind simultaneously and as inextricably linked.

Barbadians are a supposedly intelligent people. They are aware of the importance of water and know that Barbados is a water scarce country. But you will never guess this by merely observing how we use and misuse water.

Some 15 years ago, John Connell, obviously frustrated by the absurd attitude and behaviour of Barbadians towards the use of water, published an article entitled When You Miss Me, I Am Gone. Mr Connell, inter alia, commented on the "two- facedness" of progress which gives us the faucet, thus facilitating the use of water but at the same time making it easier to waste this precious and finite resource. This visionary also noted the damage caused by broken mains which permitted water "to spew out in countless gallons unseen or simply not cared about by crisis people".

His article resonated with me to the extent that I still have a copy in my possession.

Fifteen years after, the crisis people are still not sufficiently focused on the need to collect and store more water and to use it more wisely.

Equally appalling is the seeming absence of any sense of urgency to rid the distribution system of its numerous "leaks". Instead, many people now seem content to be engaged in a debate over the reasonableness or otherwise of the increase in water rates.

I recall, too, the observations of R.T. Naylor, professor of economics at McGill University, who writing in the year 2000 predicted that in the next couple of decades we would be seeing crises in freshwater supply and soil exhaustion.

He cited the Danube, that muddy stream which has eleven countries depending on it, most of whose inhabitants hate each other, and the Middle East, where the West Bank is being sucked dry to fill Israeli swimming pools.

Professor Naylor's concerns went beyond water in particular to the environment in general. As I understand it, his key question dealt not with "optimum price" but with "optimum scale". How big can the human enterprise as a whole become without fatally disrupting the biosphere?

Is there a similar question to be answered for the region in general and Barbados in particular? Barbados is a densely populated island with an economy that depends heavily on visitors, long stay and short stay.

The existence of a desalinisation plant acknowledges the potentially precarious nature of its water supply and its agriculturists have long warned of continuous loss of top soil. In addition, waste disposal is proving to be an expensive headache.

Where then is the optimum scale beyond which the intense use of our natural resources will bring diminishing returns?

Finally, there are a few who still warn us of our need to produce more food. Whilst we recognise this need, at the same time we acknowledge our lack of adequate top soil and water. Indeed, food security has become a hot issue not only for Barbados but for many other countries. Rich countries like Saudi Arabia, China and Libya are leasing or buying large tracks of land in Africa, Russia, and elsewhere, to produce food for consumption in their homeland.

Some commentators, however, view these deals as not being so much about land as about water, for with the land comes the right to withdraw the water linked to it.

Is there not an opportunity for Barbados to assess the feasibility of the above model and seek to lease in Guyana suitable land with attendant water rights? Success with such a venture will surely go a long way in reducing our problems with water, food and Guyana.