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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Jobs! Jobs! And more jobs!

J. Roughan
29 July 2010
Honiara  

World wide--workers from Europe, America, China, Japan, etc. etc.--more than 300 million of them, are looking for work but can't find any. In fact, this dramatic job decline is wrecking national economies across the world. No matter how well big companies and businesses are doing, if the unemployment rate is high and staying that way then that nation suffers greatly.
 
So too with our own country! If the Solomons isn't producing enough jobs--for men and women, young and old, educated and not so well educated--then poverty grows stronger, living standards fall and food becomes more expensive for everyone to buy.
 
Although there is no magic formula for creating more jobs, certain truths remain basic, fundamental. Government agencies are the least able to create new jobs and when they do, then, these jobs cost too much money to bring on stream. For instance, often a government job demands a permanent house for the worker to live in or at least a healthy housing allowance as well as other perks because the work area is in an urban centre. 
 
Local businesses or the private sector, however, usually make more jobs and at lower cost than the public sector, the government. But in the Solomons, the most powerful private sector is usually over looked. It is the village part of our economy. That's where the major means of production--land, water, planting material, know how and labor abundance--are all based.
 
But to make more jobs, then, a food security economy has to root within our people's minds. Food security is not merely a matter of more tons of food grown but think of it as a system with links from the crop planting time right up to the moment when it is eaten at the dinner table. The whole food security economy is like a chain with many links each connected to the other and each link strengthening our society with more and more paid employment.
 
The first three links--planting, harvesting and food storage--are clear enough but little work has been done on the up grading of new storage techniques--drying, smoking and packaging--of the traditional root, fruit and nut crop products. Many southeast Asian countries sun dry cooked root crops, nuts and fruit products. Later on this year, during the November-January period, the country will experience a mango, pineapple and banana over-production which will flow into the urban area and glut the market.
 
Mango and pineapple prices will tumble because so many of these fruits land in the Central Market at the same time. Imagine if there were a thriving mini-industry which could extend the life of these nutritious food items so that people could have them practically all year long. Isn't it time to get the colored, sugar laced ice block off the market and replace it with healthier fruit juice ice blocks? There's a small industry just waiting to be born and create tens of dozen new jobs nation wide!
 
Traditional methods of preserving food--kept in dry conditions--extends the life of these products by a few weeks at the most. Sun drying of fruits, nuts and certain root crop is already practiced in the case of peanuts and ngali nuts but much more work along this line must be explored. Fish drying , smoking and salting in brine extend the usefulness of this food product so that it can be transported and sold at centralized markets around the country. All of this kind of activity is the foundation for new jobs and all at the local level.
 
No longer can we simply depend upon our women farmers and men fishers on their own. A food security economy depends upon many levels of workers producing the necessary food product, preserving or adding value--fruit juices--moving it around the country to feed our growing population and at the same time gaining a meaningful return on their work efforts.
 
Presently a single food item--imported rice--costs our poor people over $200 million a year. How helpful is this form of 'development' for our long term national health?  Our nation can ill afford to send that kind of money overseas to those who already have much more than ourselves. Yet, we continue to follow this destructive 'development' path although our own women farmers have the proven ability to grow, harvest and distribute healthier and better food. The whole chain of production to plate means jobs, jobs and more jobs.  

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