Saturday, April 26, 2008

Cassava(novice)

So our dear Minister of Agriculture has decreed that we need to become well acquainted with the mysterious tuber, Cassava. He has encouraged us to plant Cassava on whatever little piece of land we have and then we are to purchase Cassava flour, Cassava bread, Cassava cookies, Cassava chips, bammy fries, etc...

One farmer, who does not speak for the rest of us, pointed out that he has no intention of getting into Cassava farming because he doesn't know the difference between the poisonous variety and the edible one. .... There is a poisonous variety??

Has this minister ever seen a Cassava tuber? Him know how to mek Cassava flour? Can he tell the difference between the good variety and the poisonous one? Why him choose Cassava and not Yam? We have at least 6 different type of Yam that any non-bumpkin can name and him choose Cassava?!.... The average person only know seh Cassava use fi mek bammy but have no idea how it happen!

Ok fine, let's switch to Cassava. I went to the market and apparently the farmers weren't informed of the decision because I was unable to locate Cassava in any quantity that would supply any market demand. The supermarkets don't have any Cassava bread, Cassava crackers, Cassava chips, Cassava flour, etc.... hell they don't have Cassava anything!!!

Alright lets not get anti-patriotic now. It's time to band together and band our bellies. Farmers you need to start planting cassava and the government will do their best to facilitate this new Cassava initiative.

NOT!!!! Samuda jim-screechying (trademark acknowledged sir) round the corner and importing foreign rice. Him mussi neva hear seh Cassava is king! Him a try get them to drop di tarif pon di american rice. So the show down between Uncle ben and KIng Cassi is looming!

Then Shaw decide seh import duty on vehicles, licensing fees on said vehicles fi increase. But Motor Sales said that included in that list is the vehicles that the farmers typically purchase to facilitate their farmering! So they will have to recoup those costs by raising the price on King Cassi!

For the rest of us, NHT mortgages will do us in before King Cassi makes his maiden voyage. So if you qualified at 6% and decided to 'tin mackerel it out' for a few yrs, yu cawna dawk now cause is 8% it gone to. Dat mean that some ppl not going to be able to make payments and coupled with inflation rate and new taxes, gas price, protection fees due to spiraling crime, you could lose your house easy.

Ppl gonna be pushed closer to the moral border-line. Alternative schemes will flourish. CP's demise won't be a deterrent!

The measly drop in transfer tax not enough to allow the rest of us to afford a piece of land to plant Cassava! We can't even take up smoking to calm wi nerves and stave off hunger!

So minister Cassava-novice, before you make such decrees, please inform the rest of your comrades (since is Manley policies from the 70s you all enacting now) not to shoot holes in your plans before they get off the ground!

Selah!!!

P.S. The learning curve on a new cash crop is about 2 yrs. What we to do till then?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can't believe you guys are going to have to resort to cassava for your provisions. God bless unno. Things are getting just as tight in the US as well. Rice flying of shelves like the concord.

Rae said...

Loving the new look BB! This post was a good read :) Excellent points!