Agriculture and Technology in Guyana.

Recently i was discussing with a gentleman about business ventures. I have this particular interest in agriculture. i was born and raised in mahaicony and i guess that explains why i like agriculture. I would try to explain this in as simple terms as possible. Later i will try to develop an economic model for it. Agriculture = Production. Factors of Production: 1. Land (includes natural resources such as water) 2. Labour (work force, skilled, semi-skilled, unskilled) 3. Capital (financial resources) 4. Entrepreneurship (ME) Guyana is blessed with all these factors of production, but yet we complain about being unable to produce enough foods. In fact the complain is now Q. "Why are we importing foods that we can produce?". the answer is simple. A. Because it is cheaper to import it. Heck, it probably is cheaper to import sugar. Soon it would be cheaper to import rice! Why is our cost of production so high? In guyana, we produce agricultural products. we till the soil. We know that we have all the factors of production. But in production analysis we have to take into consideration: Cost analysis. If we take any single agricultural product we will find that 90% of the cost to produce a single unit of that product is Variable. Variable means that the cost increases or decreases with the level of output. for example: Rice: all costs are variable except rent. ploughing based on number of acres. chipping dragging sowing seeds labour Poultry: all costs are variable baby chicks feeds labour In the early 1900's one scientist predicted that our world would starve because our production is not enough to supply the growing population. what he didn't take into consideration was: TECHNOLOGY. Technology is probably the single most important input into any process, whether it is agriculture, tourism, manufacturing, retail. whatever the process is technology is vital. It is indeed sad that to this day guyana is yet to improve their technology in the agricultural sector. In economics the principle of Production Possibility Frontier (PPF) implies that with technology there is a shift the PPF. I find it funny that they dont have Technology as a factor of production. I move a motion that TECHNOLOGY BE CONSIDERED A FACTOR OF PRODUCTION - separate from capital. How technology affects our production and market structure. in economics we learn of market structure: Perfect competition--------monopolistic competition-------------------oligopoly-------------monopoly. Best---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------worst. one of governments role is to strive for the perfectly competitive market. Globalization has made the world into an international market!! this means that i can produce my tomatoes and sell them to Holland! similarly Holland may produce tomatoes cheaper and cost to import to guyana is less that guyana's cost to produce. therefore as a business man i would be tempted to import that from Holland. What do we know 1. Guyana can produce. 2. The world is a global market. 3. Production moves with technology and by extension affects cost of production. 4. Guyana lacks technology and advancement in this area. Aftermath and example: 1. one acre of land can produce 15 bags of paddy when cultivated by non-mechanized equipment. 2. one acre of land can produce 40 bags of paddy when cultivated by mechanized equipment and FERTILIZERS are added. Fertilizer and Mechanized equipments are technology. 3. WE IMPORT FERTILIZER!!! 4. WE IMPORT FUEL to run the mechanized equipment!!! We see that two of the most important technologies to boost our production is imported. Fundamentally this is a problem. We buy inputs on a global market, we convert those inputs and even though we have the other factors of production we are forced to sell at high prices to cover our high cost of inputs. Solution: Innovative thinking. Here is a classical example of how we can improve our production by using innovative thinking. In farming poultry we know that 2 lbs of feed would give you 1lb of weight from broilers. personally, i know from drinking a few shots of banko wine i get hungry. therefore we see that alcohol makes digestion occurs faster. i am not sure whether it makes metabolism occurs faster but what i do know is that chickens would eat all day. therefore if you speed up their digestion then we can say that they get hungry faster, they eat more and get more weight faster. experimenting leads to better results. i would like to see more people and business invest into technology to boost production and reduce cost of production thereby making our firms more competitive on a global market and allowing our people to eat at cheaper prices! i hope you understand what i am getting at.