Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 19/Sep 02:58

Fooling ourselves, feeding ourselves

PAOLO KERNAHAN I DIDN’T eat a goat roti until I was well into my 20s. Somehow that sounds more like more of an embarrassing admission than being a 40-year-old virgin (No, I'm not 40.) Growing up in the western peninsula, I was isolated from much of the "exotic" foods that constitute the Trini culinary palette. Eating goat roti for the first time was a revelation; I moved from a one-dimensional existence to three-dimensional splendour. It was like finding religion in prison. Perhaps unbeknownst to the western peninsula, goat meat isn’t a delicacy but a reasonably common feature of diets in other parts of the country. The memory of when I was "jumped in" to goat culture came flooding back when I read how much forex is consumed in pursuit of the dead; chicken, that is. Many of you seemed quite surprised by how many greenbacks are sunk into the chicken we sink our teeth into every day. The Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Industry estimates Trinis eat a million chickens per week. It also refers to the poultry industry as "local," a designation that’s only half true. This country haemorrhages countless millions every year to import hatching eggs and feed to grow the chickens you eat. This species of poultry has long been the favoured source of protein with Trini palates, but at a crazy cost. The publication of the top forex users in TT, while only part of the story, revealed that among the biggest users are – you! Whether it’s Kentuckry or the "Happy Eating Place" Chinese restaurant on the Eastern Main Road or in your own grocery baskets – you’re spending forex to buy necessary (and unnecessary) foods; it’s just facilitated through a middleman. One clear lesson from the publication of that forex list is that we need to actively work towards diversification of our diets as a nation. It wasn’t that long ago, in relative terms, that goats were a regular feature in rural areas and even on the fringes of and within urban zones. Goats cleared overgrown, abandoned lots, feeding themselves at no cost. They produced milk and provided income for small farmers who, back then anyway, were better able to supply the market and keep pricing stable. Today, most of our goat meat is imported and sold at less than half the price of the local product, which is superior in quality. This is a further drain on foreign exchange. While this will sound antithetical to the concept of a liberalised economy, it’s time for a complete ban on all imported goat meat. This would have to be coupled with a reorganisation of the industry with increased praedial larceny protection. This would encourage more people to enter into the industry, bringing the price down and ushering lots of benefits – cleaner communities with less overgrowth, employment, etc. A healthy animal husbandry sector can create all sorts of spin-off benefits – yoghurt, cheese and skincare products. All of these can be produced to export standards to balance forex flows. Smaller herds managed among families in rural communities can reduce reliance on social programmes like Cepep and URP. This, however, isn't just about meat production as a source of protein. I don’t want to call down the lightning from the chicken mafia or anything, but meat may be far more dominant in our diets than it should be. It’s worth noting that the reason Trini dishes are so flavourful is because in the days of colony and even in our post-colonial haze, meat wasn’t widely available to the masses, not in the volumes we take for granted today. As such, Trini food culture was born out of taking ordinary, basic ingredients and infusing them with flavour to make extraordinary dishes – all without the flavour inherent in meat proteins. That’s the genesis of all our chokas, callaloo and a proper stewed red beans. Of course, there’s the venerated doubles. As for the poultry industry, we need to invest more effort in creating the breeding stock that gives us our own "hatching" independence. It’s no longer enough to shrug our shoulders and say, “Well, Trinis like dey belly!” TT is well past the FA stage – we’re in the find-out phase. Economist Marla Dukharan has warned that this country has plummeted to its lowest level of import cover since 2006, a mere six months and change. We can either keep searching for a forex villain or the solutions; we can’t do both. The post Fooling ourselves, feeding ourselves appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.