Is TriMart the slave master… or does the trail lead much deeper?
8oz squash – BDS$4.21
16oz sweet potato – BDS$7.87
A few weeks ago BFP’s editor Marcus wrote in an article “There was another day last month where we again had to decide between delaying the car payment for a week or buying food.”
Things aren’t supposed to be like this
Not after so many years and so much history. Not after 40 plus years of independence since we the majority finally elected our own leaders to chart our own course.
It wasn’t supposed to end up this way with a car in every driveway but no money for petrol to get to work (if you still have a full time job) and no money for food on the table. No land to grow food, and unchecked praedial larceny if you do plant a little garden.
The government’s “solution” to praedial larceny is to declare the need for stronger laws to prevent these large and small thefts from the fields and from home gardens.
That’s not a “solution” when the problem is sweet potatos at US$4 each and people are hungry.
That’s not a “solution” when G. across the way went from 5 days a week cleaning rooms at a big hotel to 2 days a week and those sweet potatos are US$4 each.
Welcome to your new Massa folks… the people responsible for the US$4 potato. It’s slavery and nothing less.
Here at Barbados Free Press we keep mentioning that the BLP and the DLP held a great half-a-billion dollar cricket party for a few weeks at Cricket World Cup – but that was only one outrageous act of many that left us on the edge as a country and as citizens and families.
Can you feel it?
Can you feel the undercurrent working its way through our country? The “us” and the “them”? Them being the political and business elites who do fine no matter what is happening to the rest of us.
Prime Minister Thompson is ill, and we wish him well and we pray for him and his family. We do pray for him, you know. We want Mr. Thompson well for himself and his family and the country – because it is not a good thing for the world to have doubts about our Prime Minister’s health, no matter how capable our Acting PM appears.
But there is another truth that has been once again highlighted by the Prime Minister’s illness. As one of the political and business elites, Mr. Thompson can afford to go to the best of the best doctors in New York City.
And several of our newly-elected DLP politicians who didn’t have a pot to pee in before they were elected in January of 2008 are driving expensive new vehicles and sporting fine Miami clothes.
The Prime Minister is in New York City for medical tests and you know damn well what would happen to your mother or brother or friend if they went to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and complained about the same pains.
And sweet potatos are US$4 each.
Can you feel it friends?
Can you feel the undercurrent of realisation that is making its way into conversations at home and work and with neighbours? Do you hear the anger? Can you feel the anger in your neighbours’ talk? The pot is boiling in Barbados – and sweet potatos at US$4 each is the fuel that might cause that pot to boil over.
Cliverton
Thanks to Kammie Holder for the photo. Kammie has nothing else to do with this article. It’s mine.
Barbados Free Press 
BFP there is so much exploitation on this little piece of corrupt rock we live on. If Barbadians do not stand up to it. If Barbadians do not stage a serious boycott of this price gouging scourge we all will continue to suffer secretly and openly. Every friggin thing in this country is so high. Cloths high, food high, land high, cars high and salaries poor.
Don’t forget that these same sweet potatoes will shortly be subject to a 2% environmental levy.
Evating in Bim at a standstill,wha happening. Donald are you the cause? Evating outside a Bim getting discussed. Cliques no longer, largesse big pallaber every week, immigration gone 30k, cost of living no lie, over runs to add to cost. Pappa David says “Life can be beautiful”
Peoples watch out “The circus is coming” Dats the next distraction.
Yes I feel it and I want to leeeeeeeeeeaaaveeeee, but go where??? Half my salary goes to the supermarket, a quarter to bills and the last quarter to gas. Makes me want to cry when I get that blasted cheque every month. And I don’t make pocket change either.
You’re right that something is happening with the mood of the people. Food and fuel costs are a big part of it but not everything. There is a feeling that we’re not progressing. When will it be time for me to get my bailout? Everybody else is getting theirs. I need my teeth fixed for a year and can’t afford it but CitiBank paid a board member $350,000 for three weeks of consulting and they want to charge 24% on my credit card!
When are we as a society going to learn? It would be cheaper to hire a person tomake a vegetable garden than to buy one potatoe. Anyhow not many Barbadians have a back yard anymore or if so they have chosen to plant grass. LOL
BFP folks,
The headline’s a winner. It definitely makes a reader want to read the rest of the piece.
And there can be no doubt that you’ll get some traction with the “them and us” stuff. That’s a no-lose position to take in any media, as is the “elites” stuff. It’s an approach that’s guaranteed to find support in every country on Earth under any circumstances (with the possible exception of North Korea), but I’m not sure how helpful it is in practical terms.
Full disclosure: I’m one of the “us” and (except as a consumer) I have zero connection to anyone who works for TriMart or for any other food producer/distributor.
It’s a nice, emotive piece, BFP, but it’s also maddeningly vague. It contains one (that’s a big “ONE”) bit of verifiable information: sweet potatoes cost US$4 each. The rest is simply annoyed rhetorical blogsterism. It’s not helpful.
Neither is this: “Welcome to your new Massa folks… the people responsible for the US$4 potato. It’s slavery and nothing less.”
“Slavery” is a large claim to make. It might be an entirely reasonable claim to make, but you can’t reasonably make it unless you support it with something.
The piece would have been 100 times stronger and perhaps even unassailable if you’d made some effort (can be done in about 4–5 sentences) to explain the process whereby sweet potatoes cost US$4 each.
This is not difficult stuff to explain, BFP, and an explanation would have been a genuine public service. But it’s clear from the comments here that you’ve already sparked a narrative about “price gouging”. That, too, is unhelpful.
Jack Bowman why don’t you get it? food costs are terrible and they are taking up a bigger part of my pay each month. if it is not difficult to explain a $4 potatoe then please do so jack.
Mr/Ms Slave too,
Let’s get a couple of things straight at the outset.
First, I do get it. I live in Barbados. I know what food costs here.
Second, the price of food in Barbados absorbs a ridiculous proportion of my pay each month, too. I get it. I “get” that if I were living in New York City or London or Rome or Lisbon, my food would definitely cost less.
I haven’t lived in any of those cities, but I’ve lived in comparable cities world-wide. And it astonishes me that if I want to buy something as simple as an ONION in Barbados, my main option is some tiny mutant-looking thing that seems to have been through a nuclear war and that is already ROTTING in the basket at the market while I’m standing there looking right at it.
If I want to buy a red pepper in Barbados, my main option is some miniscule, already-shriveled runt, pre-bitten by pests.
Why is that? Why is it that, living on a tropical island, I eat MUCH LESS tropical fruit than I ate when I didn’t live on a tropical island? Why? Who is being protected, here?
Finally, explaining a $4 potato is not my job on this thread. You’re asking the wrong person. I’m not the one who wrote a 580-word article that was deliberately designed to elicit anger on the basis of one (count them: ONE) verifiable fact.
In the end you simply echo my own question to BFP: why does a potato cost US$4 in Barbados? Why?
I’m not asking you to think that it’s “us” against “them”. Maybe it really IS “us” against “them”. But first I want BFP to explain to its readers, you and me, who “them” is. Given the 580-word BFP article that made you annoyed without ever identifying who was annoying you, these are fair questions.
Otherwise, it’s just “us” and “them”. It’s the Bilderberg Group and the “intellectual elites” and the Elders of Zion and the 9/11 conspiracy. And, by the way, did you know that there’s a statue of Elvis on the moon and the Rapture is happening next October?
It is not hard to explain why sweet potato costs US4 in Barbados. It’s not hard to explain why I eat less tropical fruit in Barbados than I did when I lived in northern Europe. It’s not hard to explain why tiny, warped Bajan onions are rotting in the market while you’re standing there looking right at them and deciding whether you’ll buy them.
To blame “globalization” is to laugh at a child in the dark. And to be “anti-globalization” is like being against gravity. It’s like having very strong opinions about whether the weather should be different.
If I’d written a 580-word article about “food slavery”, I would have tried to explain those things. So your questions are directed at the wrong guy. Try to work it out with BFP.
All best wishes to you.
Lef it pon de shelf
Look for someting else
Gudown cheapside or Fairchild Street
Look fuh someting else dat sweet
Pay de local vendor, instead of de rich grocer
I done widdat, yuh should keep yuh money closer.
As much as the market will bear.
People supermarkets and retailers will continue to charge what we will pay without any protestation. Wunna want expensive house wid lawn plus the new zero lot line. Do like me and dig up some the damn lawn and plant some String Beans and Dill like me.
BFP, I will never blame any government for ignorance of a citizen. I will blame Haynesley Benn for sleeping on the job while Michael Lashley seeks to provide houses to everyone.
Houses will be like Autumn leaves to be found everywhere, Arable Land or Affordadle Land will be like diamonds precious but rare!
BFP you make me laugh! What are trying to say?? What is going to happen? Price control ? Naaah.
The pot will continue to boil ..just bla bla bla and nothing else. Prices are rising costantly and people just humble and grumble…as usual.
Hi Jack/Bajan Blog Watch
Please pick a name and stick with it, ok?
Thanks for your thoughts on this article. Yup, I was angry when I wrote it. Nope, I don’t have all the answers and judging by your original comments you think it is simple to explain…
“This is not difficult stuff to explain,” and “(can be done in about 4–5 sentences) to explain the process whereby sweet potatoes cost US$4 each.”
So, how about explaining it for us? Why does a sweet potato have to cost US$4 on this rock and where along the chain are the profits being taken and how much? Also, are any state-granted monopolies (direct or indirect) responsible for killing any competition that may have resulted in lower food prices… and who owns those monopolies and what are the political connections?
Thanks!
Look, guys …
First, I don’t mean to get on your back about this. I was simply struck that you seemed to have wandered over onto the Dark Side, deliberately inciting anger among your readers on the basis of minimal information. I’d come to expect that kind of thing from writers and commenters in Another Place, but not from you.
Second, any journalist worth his salt who set out to write an angry piece about food prices in Barbados (and “angry” is not necessarily bad; often, “angry” is appropriate) might have spent thirty minutes or so online looking at Barbados’s basic import schedule for foodstuffs.
The journalist might also have looked at the import tariffs applicable to those commodities—tariffs set by the freely and democratically elected government of Barbados according to the will of the sovereign Barbadian people in free and fair elections.
Quite possibly, the journalist might have wondered what proportion of this country’s population is dependent on (for example) onion-growing, and whether the greater good of the greater number might be better served by not protecting (for instance) local onion growers.
Indeed, the journalist might even consider very grave matters of public health and their relation to trade policy.
If, for example, there is a massive diabetes problem in country X, and if it can be shown that the problem is connected to the prices of fresh fruits and vegetables in country X, should the policymakers in country X reconsider their trade and tariff policy? What serves the greater good of the greater number?
To pre-empt the more obvious objections: I get the notion of “food security”, okay? I get it.
I also “get” the mountain of limbs being amputated in, say, country X. And I get its massive diabetes problem.
Who is being protected here? And to what purpose? And why do I have to buy tiny, pre-shriveled, nutrient-deficient local foodstuffs while the local surgeons are hacking off limbs every day?
Damn Jack,
You’re pretty good. I really mean that. Could we impose upon you to write a proper piece about food prices? We’d certainly be happy to feature anything you’d care to write about.
We have our faults and we actually like it when our readers hold us to account for less than stellar efforts. How about sharing your ideas with BFP’s readers because we all recognise that you have something worthwhile to say.
Thanks.
M.
Haynesley Benn did your Ministry of Agriculture’s official agree that both Brighton and St Lucy should come out of agriculture.
Did you not say that when land is designated agricultural land, the fact that it is not at the time in agricultural production stops it from being classified as agricultural land.
Is it common for plantations to leave land lying idle when they want to get permission to sell it for housing. Brighton’s soils is some of the most fertile in the country.
When one parcel on a plantation is taken out of agriculture it puts pressure on the surrounding lands since the owner will always go for the sale for housing since that gives him no work and a higher price for his land
Where is the Agriculture Protection Act that was promised within 6 months of coming to office
With the St Lucy and Brighton lands being taken out of agriculture, the government refusing to buy or give support to Graeme Hall and giving permission to put the CH CH wetlands (the last remaining wetlands in the country) into housing, one really has to question the land use and environmental policy. What is worse is that the wetlands are in the constituency of the Minister of Environment who has been silent on the issue.
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Dear Readers,
You know the saying, ‘Give a man a fish he eats for the day’, ‘Teach a man to fish and he eats for life’.
Change is happening and here’s proof!
A couple days ago CPRI launched its KickStarter crowdfunding video campaign which I would like to share with you. The purpose of our project is to set up a permaculture school in Barbados to teach, educate and demonstrate through the principles of permaculture how to grow food, repair landscapes & build community. Permaculture is a design science, inspired by nature and guided by ethics. Its purpose is to meet the needs of humanity while benefiting the environment. To this end, it empowers individuals, local communities and the larger public to build sustainable & environmentally friendly:
•Food and Land Systems
•Social and community systems
•Shelter and home systems
•Livelihood and business systems
I hope you will take the time to watch the video link below. If this campaign is successful, it will help endure the life of this project, a project which I am committed to for the next 3 years. It is super exciting for me to share it with you and I hope, you find it exciting too!
Please watch this 3 minute video before reading further https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1413679591/caribbean-permaculture-research-institute-of-barba
Now…can you see why I am excited? Would you like to help me roll out this amazing campaign? If so, I would be indebted to you if you could do the following:
1. Claim a reward by donating Any amount
NOTE 1:
Pledges can be as low as $1.00 Canadian and the quantum of your pledge will NOT be displayed, just your name as a “backer”.
NOTE 2:
Should you decide to pledge choosing a donate tab of your choice, it will prompt you to sign in with your FB account, or sign up with KickStarter. Please take the time to complete this important short step that is secured by KickStarter, thank you.
2. Share this campaign with your family members and friends, and ask them to do the same.
3. Post and share the campaign on your Facebook page, twitter and with others you know who would love to help us reach our goal. Thank you so much for your help!
For your convenience, the following is a short version that you can use to email family and friends and/or post on social media outlets.
“A Crowdfunding community initiative that I personally support has been started to assist in launching the Caribbean Permaculture Research Institute of Barbados. Through the support of many people, rather than relying solely on, and chasing grants, we kindly ask you to watch this 3 minute video. Should you decide to support this project on KickStarter, pledges can be as low as $ 1.00 CDN and the quantum of your pledge is NOT displayed, just your name as a “backer”. By choosing a donate tab, it will prompt you to sign in with FB, or sign in with KickStarter. Please complete this important step secured by KickStarter. Thank you. Here is the link to the 3 minute video https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1413679591/caribbean-permaculture-research-institute-of-barba “
Thank you for your consideration and cooperation
Help CPRI with its goals to empower people to grow food everywhere on this island!
God bless!
Lorraine Ciarallo
Site Manager, Designer and Consultant
Caribbean Permaculture Research Institute (CPRI) of Barbados
Graeme Hall, Christ Church
http://www.cpribarbados.com
https://www.facebook.com/CPRIBarbados
1.246.428.8485