By Marjorie A. Stair, Bureau Chief BARNETT ESTATES Ltd., in Montego Bay, has, in recent years, gradually transformed most of its former sugarcane and banana lands into commercial, industrial and residential estates. The portion of the property left in agriculture is clearly awaiting transformation, if we are to use the current state of the sugar cane as an indicator. As the commercial and residential district of Greater Montego Bay expands to the west, some of the most arable agricultural lands are lost forever. Other fertile lands, highly suitable for agriculture, have been already lost to the unplanned and illegal housing settlements that are the foundation of Operation PRIDE. Similar transformation of agricultural lands into commercial, residential or industrial use has taken place all over Jamaica. This is not a recent occurrence as sections of Kingston and St Andrew sit on some of the most fertile lands, e.g. the Liguanea Plain. Our history of plantation agriculture resulted in the smaller farmers being located on the more marginal and/or hillside lands. Many of us can testify to the 'goat' or 'rockstone' lands that were bought by those settled in free villages and the earlier Government Land Settlement schemes. It was much later that small farmers got access to some of the lands more suitable for agriculture either by purchasing the lands directly, or through Government land reform programmes. The present situation is alarming, therefore, because if our fertile lands on which our large and more productive agricultural estates were located are being converted into commercial or industrial use, then agricultural production will be restricted to the more marginal hillside lands, creating even greater challenges for our already low agricultural productivity. IRAQ WAR Food security or its lack thereof is now high on the agenda because of the war in Iraq. The stated reasons for the Iraq war keep changing even as those justifying the numerous studies, seminars and discussions to discuss the causes of our low and declining agricultural productivity and production. The planning of the Iraq war was based on Iraq possessing and/or hiding its weapons of mass destruction. It then moved to regime change and the importance of removing Sadaam Hussein from power, then to decapitating Hussein, his cabinet and his family. Now it is about liberating the Iraqi people. A United States government will then govern the liberated Iraqi people. There is already disagreement, both between Britain and the USA, and in the USA itself over who will govern Iraq with little consideration being given to the Iraqis governing themselves. Regime change it will be indeed! Like his predecessor, President Truman, President George W Bush is using "Shock and Awe" to not only destroy the capacity of the Iraqi people to make war but also to be the independent and proud people of ancient and modern history. RESOURCES The USA, depending on the outcome of the war, will likely move on to some other place holding the resources that they need until little, unimportant countries, populated by people whose lives are expendable, understand - if they did not before - who is in control of the world. If this is not a new form of colonialism, then I do not know what is. The only difference is that this time the resources to be controlled are not precious metals or agricultural produce like sugar or gold. The critical resource that must be controlled by the New World order is oil. On 1945 August 6 at 7.15 p.m. the United States of America dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. On 1945 August 9 they dropped the plutonium bomb on Nagasaki forcing the Japanese Emperor to end the war at once. This is an excerpt from President Truman, prepared before the bombing, bur released shortly after it was dropped: "We have spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history - and won--.We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake, we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war." In the concluding paragraph of the book, 'The Day Man Lost, Hiroshima, 6 August 1945', The Pacific War Research Society has this to say: "..But through all the high-sounding words, through all the machinations dictated by power politics on both sides of the ocean, through all the demands and counter demands, through all the face-saving devices, we will hear no final, unequivocal answer to the question why the world's first atomic bomb had ever to be dropped upon Hiroshima; nor do we yet fully understand what effect that bomb has had, and may still have, upon the planet Earth and the people who dwell there - not upon the dead and the dying (we know that now) but upon the rest of us the survivors." CAVE BUSTERS What is the effect of the cave busters used in Afghanistan, for example? And what will be the effect of the bombing of Iraq using all sorts of sophisticated weapons developed as a result of billions of dollars investment in their research and development? Sugar is no longer king and Jamaica is, therefore no longer of critical importance despite our bauxite resources and our being a tourist destination of choice, We can, however, see the effects of the failure to use the appropriate measures to protect the integrity of our land and our environment. Our food security is based on imported food as our agricultural lands lie idle or are transformed into other use. We have degraded our human capital as we have degraded our land with exactly the same result. We have reduced the capacity of our land and of our people to produce economically useful goods and services. Land degradation because of unsafe agricultural practices on marginal hillside lands which have accelerated the soil erosion process, the build up of soil pests and diseases, over pumping of aquifers resulting in salinity, failure to practice basic practices of crop rotation soil conservation and drainage, ineffective use of fertilisers have all combined to reduce our agricultural productivity. In the age of knowledge we still offer our people to foreign investors as cheap, low technology, low skilled labour because we have failed to properly educate them and we are, therefore, unable to exploit the exciting new technologies available to us. The Iraq war has brought new meaning to the word food security in countries like Jamaica. Rely on ourselves to survive; the theme of the Operation GROW Land Lease and Food Farm projects of the Manley years has started to make sense again. What a tortuous path we have taken, the one that has led us from aiming for food self-sufficiency and true food security through Operation GROW to converting our fertile agricultural lands into housing ghettos under Operation PRIDE.