OMG, it's guava season in TnT!

April 1, 2010 by Bertrand Bhikarry

".. I heard the third living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, "A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages,.."

As with all bad news, so too with adverse natural events - it never just rains, it pours!
In an earlier post about drought, various terms given to the different types of the phenomenon were discussed briefly. There was talk of meteorological drought, agricultural drought, and a paragraph on a third aspect; hydrological drought. There's yet one more stage to consider; Socioeconomic drought, a close relative to the fourth horseman of the apocalypse.

Socioeconomic drought (SED) is the term used to describe the hard times people suffer when any, or all, of the first three faces of the actual event has made its impact. In Trinidad and Tobago we know it as the 'banga season', 'guava season' even a 'dry spell'.

If you are having diminished income as a result of crop failure, facing more expensive electricity bills, paying even more expensive fuel, blame it on drought. When the water dries, any process which depends on it becomes harder to - process, and so do the costs attendant to those processes rise.

The supply of many key goods in a developing economy depend on weather, since people there must grow food, process potable water, and manufacture objects. Such a society's haste for a better quality of life carries potential for abuse to resources, especially water. Poor usage becomes a huge factor and leads to a spiralling cycle of increasing vulnerability. Enter Socioeconomic Drought.

Examples of behaviour that lead to socioeconomic drought abound; Locally this week, the sight of tanker lorries pumping fresh water into the Petrotrin Pointe-a-Pierre reservoir to ensure a supply of coolant for the various refineries there, carries with it a benign promise of a raised cost in the end product.

Other not so hidden projections of socioeconomic drought could be that S M Jaleel will raise the selling price of their ubiquitous 'pop' to cover stock and asset losses incurred by recent bushfires.

Further across the region Uruguay (1988-99) had to convert their power generation plants from hydropower to diesel fuel. The reason was drought-induced lowering of the river levels and an eventual diminished stream flow to the turbines. The cost then of importing petrol led to the perfect example of socioeconomic drought.

The Ministry's website shows no updates since 2005

In most cases of acute SED, the demand for economic goods is fuelled by greater demand which leads to bigger processes. This syndrome needs great care in forward planning. While it's arguable that we in Trinidad and Tobago can feed ourselves now, it cannot last , as we will lose the agricultural land to housing the growing population.

Nor can we reserve scarce water if we pursue larger plants to make consumables for larger countries. The demand on our natural assets by larger populations is not a sustainable consideration for us. Neither is the profligate increased usage of it for all industry, given the need for water to purify and lubricate in process.

It does not end there. Socioeconomic drought is exacerbated by other factors beyond a lack of rain or rampaging bushfires, or overdevelopment of finite resources.

The real danger of attracting a terminal case of SED is to neglect the rate of change in the demand supply chain. If the demand is increasing more rapidly than the supply, then the vulnerability and the frequency of SED will increase as the trends converge.

The short answer Trinidad and Tobago of course is to make better use of our natural gifts. Environmentalists have said it many times, so did my parents; 'Do more with less', 'Waste not want not' and of course, 'You never miss the water till the well runs dry'.

Authors note: In an earlier post I mentioned forerunners to socioeconomic drought. Get to know them. Get involved within your own area with whatever mechanisms exist to protect it. If you do not seek your interest, no one will.

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