We have to admit that we came up empty when we tried to do a follow-up on a previous Foreign Eggs Are Coming! which we posted leading up to the Christmas period. From all the feedback received there was no significant downward movement in the price of eggs. It is regrettable that our local media has not done a follow-up story by asking what, why, who, when and where. Maybe we are being harsh on them, they seem to have their hands full trying to defend why journalists in Barbados should not pay professional fees.
In all fairness the local media has kept the issue of high food cost in Barbados as a centre issue. On a related note the Trinidad media has been reporting this week that there is overwhelming evidence the price to the consumer of imported food is starting to trend downwards. The main reason given is the depressed oil price which has impacted freight cost.
The information coming out of Trinidad requires that some explanation from Barbados merchants is required. The immediate would be to question the sourcing of suppliers used by Barbados merchants vis-à-vis those in Trinidad.
Our merchants in Barbados have held the position that the sliding oil price as a single variable is not the only factor to influence a drop in food price. We accept that there is merit in that argument to a point. Prime Minister David Thompson has been very vocal regarding the haste with which local merchants have increased the price of food to consumers when oil price was moving upward, merchants have been reluctant however to do the same as the oil price decreased. The debate about the genuineness of the merchant’s argument is a continuing one.
We believe that in the absence of a consumerist climate in Barbados, the passive stance of the local media, an irrelevant strategy from the unions and successive governments who have pandered to the merchant class over the years, we have seen a merchant class given license to fix price based on generating the widest profit. In recent days we have listened to the Director of Commerce suggesting their intention to restart the process of publicly listing the price of a basket of food items across the retail sector. We have to comment that the lack of a consistent advocacy on the part of our department of commerce has failed the PEOPLE.
A simple test which our department of commerce and by extension our government can perform is with the ground provision product. Several plantations in Barbados currently cultivate sweet potatoes and yams. It is our information that a rod can be dug from the ground for at the most $15.00 to $20.00. By our generous estimate a rod is 3- to 40 pounds. Next time a BU family members go to the supermarket they can do a simple test by checking the cost of one pound of yam or sweet potato which is estimated at $3.00 to $4.00 versus the cost of $15.00 to $20.00 per rod. We find it amazing that on a 166 square mile island we should be encountering such a massive disparity in price from source to consumer if we factor freight as a major input to final price. Who should we blame? Is it the middleman? Is it the supermarket? Or is it the cartel behaviour of price fixing which seems to have become institutionalized in Barbados?
It is our deep sense that the government needs to send a strong signal to the merchant class that it means business, the PEOPLE are suffering. On the flip side we understand that to fight with our elite merchant class is fraught with some risk. Where are their loyalties? If pressured to reduce margins and or break-up current practice will they undermine the economy by engineering flight of capital?
It has happened before.
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