ANITA RAMGUTTY WONG, PhD.
One modest unit of cucumber lokal is selling for Rs 82 at the supermarket today. Food insecurity means there is a shortage of food commodities, whether this is from locally-produced veggies and fruit or imported foods. This makes the available food expensive to purchase, as we are currently experiencing.
Since my last article on food insecurity, I rather think that the situation has taken a dramatic turn. Everyone can see that ad hoc imports of vegetables when severe shortages occur is not a sustainable solution to addressing long-term insufficiency of fresh veggies in Mauritius. Of course, we are not in the midst of war and conflict, but I cannot help but feel a chill in my spine when I wonder if we too are soon to experience, in the words of UN Chief Antonio Guterres last month, a life of “deadly, daily, hungry hell.” Would it really be an exaggeration to describe our situation as chaotic, when, as a country we are unable to provide for immediate food needs, such as following bad weather, and have no clear programme in place for a long-term, sustainable and resilient food system for the population? 
So who has to step up here? Because food is a right for all, we expect the signal and the programme to be a political one. Just like hunger and famine do not arise because of insufficient food, but due to political failures, so we can expect that a successful food self-sufficiency programme will be addressed through political action, with a nationally-shared vision and strategy for all to collectively own and implement. This is not about bringing in investors to produce food and export it for profit, nor is it about adding a few “schemes” every year that set off to a politically-sparkling start and peter out into nothingness for lack of continued monitoring. It is about making long-term commitments to achieve food and nutritional security for us all, irrespective of class, region or status.
Mauritius, a land of diversity and solidarity, has come through a remarkable history of resilience in the face of adversity, leveraging on these qualities across a range of industrial strategies, such as tourism, higher education, retirement destination, and foreign direct investment. If we can believe that harmony and solidarity are truly a strength, a basis for success, then we can honour this national spirit by allowing for flexibility in the production model of our food systems as well, where small and large growers, importers and local producers alike, open field and greenhouse systems, processors and retailers, all find their place under a shared spirit of participative action, not competing but collaborating to design and operate a unique tapestry of many components working together, different but useful when combined, for the common good.
For instance, vegetable growers, current and potential, are constantly put off by the threat of theft, but all consumers, in a spirit of solidarity with bona fide farmers, could rally and refuse to buy any fruit or vegetable from unknown or unofficial sources. This would require a system of quality surveillance and product tracking. And can we ask that Municipalities and District Councils step up with a plan, including the necessary legal framework, to seize the hundreds of terrain vag and lease them out to NGOs, individuals, schools and families to set up street or community organic gardens?
And as it is the private sector that drives production, will large operators step up to cross-support their diverse business lines so that the production of food for the country expresses their pledge for national solidarity, and not a mere business line like another? What higher honour would it be for them, who once came to take advantage of our rich arable soil through vast agricultural developments, than to once more play a major role, this time balancing financial goals with a social purpose?
It seems to me that there are many local food producers and processors doing a great job across a number of areas, including in agro-processing, and we are gratified to have our fruit and veg, eggs, snacks, pickles, tea, and so many other things that we take for granted. Like spoiled children, we complain when prices of local fruits and vegetables rise, without a clear understanding of the processes and constraints involved.
Surely the time has come, like the European Union under the Green Deal, to honour and support our local planters and producers, small and large, and reciprocate their dedication to producing food for us? What we need is a compelling strategy, rolled out through a tremendous all-out campaign that reaches out to the very last person, driving home new attitudes about food production and consumption, nutrition, lifestyle choices, and patriotic values.
This would boost demand and production for fresh and local produce, be it under hectares of open field farming, organic greenhouses, backyard food forests, urban community allotments, school gardens, or rooftop potagers, sold at local farmers’ markets or at supermarkets, with love and respect in our hearts for each other and for all our planteurs and a renewed sense of pride to be under the sun “here”, where no-one is unhappy enough about the food situation to throw rotten tomatoes or soup at artwork. Incidentally, I happily paid Rs 35 for a nice cucumber direct from a farmer the other day, and I wondered what kinds of controls were in place -or not- in the supply chain to ensure consumers are not paying more than double at markets and supermarkets.
In my own food forest, the chemical-free veggies, fruits and herbs I passionately grow arise from a social business model based on a conviction that quality, freshness and taste also matter, not just quantity. This means that the yields and subsequent financial returns are small, necessitating complementary revenue-generating activities, yet without bitterness or frustration. And I have faith that there are visionary leaders out there, who can boldly state to the world that their business is much more than making profit for profit’s sake, that their values include a social duty, a distinct contribution to community and national well-being.
To ensure food quality through the consumption of organically-produced crops , or at least, through responsible use of chemicals, a reinforcement of the GAP system through a framework of controls and traceability would reassure consumers regarding chemicals usage and also allow producers to maintain their yields and their financial stability. Likewise, producers of pure organic veggies and fruit would also be required to fit into a clear framework of product traceability as well as cost management so as to ensure the viability of their quality claims and also keep their prices reasonable.
Now, droughts and floods mainly threaten open-field farming, which suggests that, climate change being here to stay, an urgent phasing-into is needed toward appropriate greenhouse methods, with materials also accounting for cyclonic weather. To date, I don’t see any solid framework for a national greenhouse sector emerging. Spain is an example of a country that, through a clear national strategy, is able to produce vegetables and control pests biologically in the hydroponics system, thus producing healthy, plentiful, organic crops under shelter.
Luxembourg and Bangladesh, for their part, are two countries that have decided that their “way forward” to boost local food production will be Agroecology, a system that aligns scientific knowledge and indigenous knowledge, increases access to food, all the while taking the responsibility of protecting the environment. It is not just these countries that have seen the writing on the wall, and yet here we are, short-sighted, short-termist, passive spectators of a massive food insecurity tsunami coming from afar, visible, gathering speed and scope, certain to hit our shores and produce an unprecedented food crisis.
So let us say we seriously turn to local production to counter the quasi-certain global crises at multiple levels that are and will continue to threaten our food imports. We might, but perhaps not reliably so, expect some help and/or commitments from our pays amis, especially in the region, but we must start rethinking a return to old crops like breadfruit and cassava and develop a flour production sector in the long run. Renewed, bold, and sustained efforts in a rice sector is similarly needed. In my last article “How to Get our Cucumbers” , I spoke of the necessity to have an integrated water strategy, to ensure not only adequate drinking water supply but also to map out the solutions to ensure that we are able to produce our food with less water, more sustainably and more ecologically as well.
The production (and processing) end of the process can only succeed if the consumption end meets it half-way. Education, not only on local and seasonal foods but also on the entirely new, climate-resilient, locally-honoured food production process is necessary to create the demand for sufficient and nutritious foods that will be produced to meet our needs. Thus, is everyone’s business, as individuals, families, corporations, institutions and government, to ensure that we never, ever, come close to a deadly, daily, hungry hell, and instead, to collectively unfold another facet of our paradise island : that daily, in all types of gardens and markets, we find the foods that we require to live healthily, actively, peacefully and securely.
To ensure food quality through the consumption of organically-produced crops , or at least, through responsible use of chemicals, a reinforcement of the GAP system through a framework of controls and traceability would reassure consumers regarding chemicals usage and also allow producers to maintain their yields and their financial stability.