OPINION: Permanent farmer’s market: let it be tried

Last Updated on Wednesday, 19 August 2026, 21:58 by Writer

By GHK Lall

President Ali came out with the idea of a permanent farmer’s market program. I laud. I endorse. Let’s give it a try; that much is said right away. There is no need to remind Guyanese that they are living in a grueling cost-of-living environment. Who is more familiar, who can tell it better, than the people who deal with it, daily, if not hourly? I refrain from pointing out that it is Pres Ali’s government that has alternately pooh-poohed, or minimized, or mocked concerns about the killer domestic cost-of-living reality faced by Guyanese. It’s what has left them breathless, hopeless, and in various states of weakness. When a man or a woman cannot afford to buy basic provisions of the ground, and fruits of the vine, that is grimness lived at an inhumanly tense level. To make matters unfathomable and unbearable, it is in oil-rich Guyana. An oil-rich polity in which the statistics of the positive soar into the stratosphere.

Thanks, Mr. President. I am all for a permanent farmer’s market. Let them start to spring up. As many of them as can be, and especially across the heavily populated, non-farming regions. The president mentioned that the “middlemen” will be cut out. Based on what he shared, it is with justification. There was some intel that they were jacking up the prices before distributing at the retail level. But not as much as 10 times their own buying price. A markup of 10 times should be a felony, a new kind of highway robbery. Literally. I think there could be coexistence with three times what they bought their goods for, but not at five times, and certainly not at more than three times a threefold markup. To be brutally frank, these “middlemen” were murdering poor, ordinary, Guyanese consumers. To put this graphically, these middlemen were (are) carving out the entire middle of the bodies of Guyanese food shoppers. An outrage, even when looked at kindly.

The mystery and difficulty that were encountered is why should farm produce prices stay either stubbornly high, or were always marching upwards. Why when the Ali government has been generous to farmers? Why with all the lavishness with subsidies in the form of millions, seeds, fertilizers, and other components of farming activity and commerce? All this help, yet all this pain with prices. For fruits and vegetables. For greens and all those other ingredients that go into a healthy, tasty meal. Not just as a onetime treat. But as a constant in poorer homes, to the inspiration and uplift of the entire family. There is quantity. There is variety. There is the beauty of not being hungry. Even if the meals are purely veggies.

Thinking of this another way, and with a nod to Pres Ali’s price multiplier of 10 by middlemen, when that number is removed from the pricing equation and vendor consideration, food prices in the municipal markets could be flatter than a zinc sheet. And as still as a sunbather on a beach. I have heard the cries of pensioners and others who grace my home with their presence about prices at the market. How exploitative and unaffordable they are. The wish was that I could do more for them. Fortunately, Excellency Ali entered the picture and took up that one with some energy and just a slight trace of impatience. He has every right to be. All those billions over the years, and still the poor in Guyana beaten to a pulp by prices for farm products.

For the time being, no politics will be seen attached to this development that yanks the rug from under the feet of middlemen. An announcement and pending move that should set local buyers on a cheaper, hopefully happier, path. Presently, the priority is to see action accompanying the president’s words, with a permanent farmer’s market rising here, there, and everywhere in the densely peopled areas, where citizens have been held hostage and hit particularly hard. Once again, thanks to Pres Ali for taking this on head-on. The sooner the new, non-middlemen setup kicks in, the better it could be for all who labored unsuccessfully against prices that crippled.