Food Security Is Not Food Affordability

Food Security Is Not Food Affordability: Government Must Explain Why Guyanese Still Cannot Afford to Eat Properly

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar– September 2026

Food Security Is Not Food Affordability   

 The Government has made “food security” and agricultural expansion central pillars of its public messaging. Ministers          routinely speak about increased acreage, higher output, new crops, regional food-import reduction, expanded exports, and Guyana’s role as a food producer for the Caribbean.

Those achievements, if real and sustained, matter. But Government must stop treating food security, agricultural production, and food affordability as if they are the same thing. They are not.

A country can produce more food, export more food, boast of greater acreage, and still leave ordinary citizens unable to afford a basic basket of groceries. Guyana can be food secure on paper while families are food insecure in their homes.

Food security concerns the availability, stability, access, quality, and reliability of food supplies. Food affordability concerns whether people have enough money to buy nutritious food consistently after paying rent, transportation, utilities, school expenses, medicine, and other necessities. Increasing production does not automatically lower the price at the supermarket, market stall, village shop, or hinterland outlet.

This is the question the Government has avoided: if agricultural expansion is succeeding, why are so many Guyanese still struggling to afford chicken, eggs, cooking oil, milk, fish, vegetables, flour, and other essentials?

It is not enough to tell citizens that more crops are being planted, that production targets are rising, or that Guyana is helping to feed CARICOM. The Government must show how its policies are reducing the amount ordinary households pay for food each week and each month.

The price on the shelf is shaped by much more than farm output. It reflects the cost of fertiliser, animal feed, fuel, machinery, drainage and irrigation, credit, storage, refrigeration, packaging, transport, imports, exchange-rate pressures, wholesaler margins, retail mark-ups, and the high cost of moving food into rural, riverain, and hinterland communities.

Unless Government addresses those costs deliberately, “agricultural expansion” will remain a slogan that does not translate into relief at the checkout counter.

The policy discussion also requires honesty. Some who reject direct subsidies go on to call for tax relief, food credits, transport support, fertilizer and feed assistance, State bulk purchasing, and free school meals. These are all subsidies in one form or another.

Tax and duty removal is an indirect subsidy because the State gives up revenue to reduce prices. Food credits are direct subsidies to consumers. Fuel, freight, fertiliser, feed, and cold-storage support subsidise producers and distributors. Government bulk buying and resale at reduced prices subsidise the market, while school feeding is an in-kind subsidy that reduces household expenses.

There is nothing wrong with using public resources to protect citizens from an unbearable cost of living. What is wrong is pretending that these interventions are not subsidies, or introducing them without transparent rules, proper targeting, independent oversight, and public accounting.

The Government should not attempt a universal food-credit scheme that sends public funds to every household regardless of income. That would be costly, difficult to sustain, and likely to worsen inflation if demand rises while supply does not. More money in consumers’ hands will not lower prices if importers, wholesalers, and retailers simply absorb the benefit through higher mark-ups.

Instead, Guyana needs an affordability programme aimed at those under the greatest pressure: low-income workers, pensioners, persons with disabilities, single-parent households, unemployed citizens, and families with young children. A targeted electronic food-support system, with publicly known eligibility criteria, audit trails, restrictions to essential foods, and protection against political interference, would provide real assistance without turning into an uncontrolled election-season giveaway.

Government must also identify every tax, duty, levy, and administrative charge that still inflates the price of essential foods and production inputs. Where such charges serve no compelling public purpose, they should be reduced or removed. But tax concessions must be accompanied by mandatory price monitoring and publication of before-and-after retail prices. Guyanese consumers must not be told that taxes were removed only to discover that supermarkets and importers kept the difference.

The Government also needs to confront the issue of price formation. It must explain why lower international prices, reduced duties, increased local production, or improved harvests do not consistently result in lower consumer prices.

♦ Are importers and distributors operating in excessively concentrated markets?

♦  Are wholesale and retail margins justified?

♦  Are storage failures, transport bottlenecks, weak enforcement, or poor market information contributing to price spikes?

These are not questions that can be answered by another ceremonial launch or acreage announcement.

A properly empowered consumer-protection and competition system is essential. The responsible agencies should publish regular prices for a standard national food basket, track variations by region, identify abnormal increases, investigate possible anti-competitive conduct, and report publicly on their findings. In particular, Government must focus on the severe disparity between coastland prices and what families pay in the hinterland, riverain, and remote communities.

There must also be a shift from announcing agriculture projects to measuring affordability outcomes. Each major agricultural investment funded by taxpayers should be tested against clear questions:

♦  Has it lowered the cost of production?

♦  Has it increased the quantity reaching domestic consumers? Has it reduced post-harvest losses?

♦  Has it reduced transport and storage costs? Has it lowered the price paid by households?

If the answer is no, then Government cannot claim success merely because more money was spent or more land was brought into cultivation.

Oil revenues provide Guyana with an opportunity that previous generations did not have. But that wealth cannot be used simply to celebrate production statistics while citizens are asked to adjust their diets, purchase less, or accept rising food bills as unavoidable. The wealth must be invested in reliable drainage and irrigation, farm-to-market roads, cold storage, agro-processing, affordable finance, farmer support, climate resilience, and efficient transport systems.

At the same time, targeted support is necessary now. Hinterland freight assistance, properly monitored input support for small producers, and universal nutritious school meals would offer practical relief while helping to build domestic demand for locally produced food.

School feeding, in particular, should be expanded nationally, with transparent procurement from local farmers, fisherfolk, livestock rearers,and agro-processors.

Food security is a worthy national objective. Agricultural expansion is necessary. Exports can generate income. But none of these accomplishments should be used as a shield against the most basic question of all: Can ordinary Guyanese afford to eat properly?

Until Government makes affordability a measurable policy priority—with published targets, transparent interventions, regular price data, and consequences for profiteering—its boasts about food security will ring hollow in households where the grocery bag gets lighter every week.

–The Board