WITH MORE than a nudge from global conditions, the wheel, at last, may be about to complete its first circle. And, it is no time to let up.

If anything, we should be adding momentum, even as we adjust the paradigm within which the wheel will now have to turn. The context is being provided by the growing shortage of, or more correctly, the rising price of commodities, which is having a negative impact on the availability of food in several countries.

In Jamaica, there is a growing focus on the need for food security and, despite the 'Marie Antoinettesque' ridicule that he has had to endure over his "eat cassava" statement, Christopher Tufton, the agriculture minister, has a point. So, too, did Michael Manley three decades ago when he posited the idea of food security and exhorted Jamaicans to eat what they grew.

Moving to grow rice

But that's not the only, or most crucial, 360-degree spin, in our view. More important is the announcement by Dr Tufton that Jamaica may get technical assistance from Guyana in the growing of rice, and the recent signals from Georgetown that it is willing to provide land to its partners in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) for agricul-tural production in Guyana. Moreover, an agricultural investment forum is soon to be hosted in Guyana.

All this is happening at a time of unease between Kingston and Georgetown over what Jamaica sees as a failure by Guyana to guarantee rice supplies to this country at a relatively predictable price - a point to which we will return.

But for the more important turn of the wheel. A quarter of a century ago, Caribbean leaders had grown deeply worried about the region's food import bill, then not too much higher than US$1 billion a year. Agricultural output was in something of a free fall.

CARICOM leaders responded by establishing the Caribbean Food Corporation (CFC), a firm that was to coordinate the production and marketing of food within the community. Guyana, with over 83,000 square miles of territory, abundant water and small population, was targeted as the potential breadbasket.

A fighting chance

The project faltered, in part, because there were those members of CARICOM, whose size and influence made them critical players, whose historic aloofness to regional integration made them lukewarm, if not openly hostile to the initiative. The CFC and its so-called Regional Food Plan had another, perhaps fatal, flaw. It was being driven by the public sector.

Much has changed in the ensuing two and a half decades, not least being the fact that private sector initiatives are, in pace, far outstripping government efforts at integration. Which gives Dr Tufton's idea, as well as wider regional proposals, more than a fighting chance.

Tough decisions ahead

But, for things to work, it will require some tough decisions by Jamaica and CARICOM, including protecting regional agriculture, that may demand facing down influential lobbies like the tourism interests. And governments will have to level with their people about why they are being forced to consume local foods at higher prices.

To return to the Jamaica/Guyana rice imbroglio. CARICOM states will have to live up to the obligations of a genuine single market, without artificial price distortions. They must be prepared to challenge misbehaviour at the Caribbean Court of Justice, operating in original jurisdiction.