Anguilla must prepare itself for harvest. It is time to harvest fruit that is tasty, pleasant to our eyes and nutritious. The fruit of our success lies in the opportunities before us, hanging low and ready to be plucked. The timing is right because the fruit is ripe and often unblemished.
Opportunity is essential for success and has for us been knocking for quite some time. Anguilla, despite the lack of rainfall or rich fertile lands is blessed with numerous chances to shape our future, determine tomorrow’s plate and share in abundance. Truly, “we reap what we sow”, therefore let us be careful to plant now the people, policies and projects that maximize production.
Here are a few specific points below (the opportunities are exhaustive) in which Anguillians can benefit now and in future.
Children
We as a people need to make, adopt and or mentor more children. Our total fertility rate is too low (1.7 in recent years), even below the recommended World Health Organization rate of 2.1. In simpler words, we are not reproducing enough of us to maintain population size.
We need to reassess our reproductive health programs such as birth control and abortion policies for their adverse effect of population aging that is crippling some major economies. Anguillian society must be a balanced age mix, not a group of old people.
All governments should support good maternal health, free education and healthy nutritious foods that promote more, healthier youngsters. Many supermarkets carry a carton drink with a label that says an ingredient may affect children’s’ attention and behavior. This should be banned. Second hand cigarette smoke sickens and kills millions of children, so cigarettes too should be banned.
As I write this article in our only hospital I am pleased to see the upgrades government has done to the pediatric and maternity wards, this should be praised and expanded. Government through ceremonies is celebrating (with sport-like fervor) the achievements of students in Test of Standards and CPEA at primary school level along with graduation at high school level in a way that excites academic achievement. As long as it is in moderation, thumbs up!
Anguillian male with female should be incentivized to marry and birth more children to expand our talent, tapestry and tax base for generations to come.
Youth is a resource, an intangible blessing of energy, creativity and innocence that can advance this nation in ways unheard. As the psalms say “children are a blessing from the Lord”.
Fishing
We are blessed with some of the best fishing grounds in the world. Snapper, hine, parrot fish, grunt and mahi-mahi to name a few are a tasty healthy source of protein for us enjoy and export. Each of us should make a deliberate effort to consume more local fish instead of imported salted or canned fish. Our fishermen risk their lives to ‘make the catch’; therefore we should make the market and pay them the asking price.
Government needs to make a fish processing plant on this island a priority. Apparently, efforts years ago failed for uncertain reasons but this is an opportunity to learn from those mistakes and “come back better”. Barriers to export fish to neighbouring St. Martin need to be rectified.
Other countries have practiced hideous fishing methods such as drag nets that remove and kill unwanted sea species like dolphins, as well as underwater dynamite blasts that easily kills fish and bring them to the surface but destroys ecology such as coral reefs. Our fishermen to the contrary have and continue to practice intelligent and sustainable fishing by using fish pots (aka fish traps) which bait desired species into the mesh wire frame and confuses their escape.
This brilliant method of local fishing needs to be part of a certification program where youth interested in fishing can be taught in classrooms and apprenticed with local fishermen resulting in a government accredited certificate.
Fishermen should be encouraged or compelled to carry life jackets and other safety kits to sea as well as GPS to avoid being lost or not found by search and rescue teams.
Fishing is the fruit of our seas hence we should pluck and process it.
UK Relations
This is a touchy subject among us Anguillians as for many years historically we have felt distant and ignored by various British governments. We must never negate this factor but yet we should recognize an upside to this arrangement.
Great Britain remains one of the strongest economies in the world (despite its relatively smaller island size) and possesses developmental and technological expertise that can advance societies globally. The UK upgraded Anguillians to full British citizenship with many entitlements that made us the admirers of many.
Education is among the greatest of these benefits and they have leveled the playing field so that we can acquire this knowledge without higher college fees despite not paying UK taxes. Government should further capitalize on this ‘grant’ by better familiarizing students and parents on the UK University system and preparation for it.
To this end we should seriously consider offering GCSE as an alternate option to CXC which though relevant, innovative and of high standing, may be somewhat heavy for some students and may stifle their entry into the UK higher education system. I understand another UK Overseas Territory in the Caribbean is considering or has already made this shift.
Health is another key fruit to be plucked. We enjoy the ability to send a small number of patients to the UK to receive free medical care not available in the Caribbean. Recent testimony from one of these patients was heart-warming, reporting excellent clinical concern and care.
Anguilla should reciprocate health advancement to the UK by articulating into a framework the factors that account for our relatively lower tobacco and possibly alcohol use. The British slogan “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” has been better realized among the lives of many Anguillian youth with respect to tobacco and hard drugs. As British citizens we should export this youthful ideology to the UK mainland.
Our people have been ambitious entrepreneurs for generations. If we ‘migrate’ to the UK we should continue this legacy of hard honest trade rather than only looking forward to jobs or hand-outs from the dole. Fruitful labour is not easy but is worth it.
Conclusion
God has given us an opportunity of time, ability and raw material to source today’s harvest and shape tomorrow’s orchard. Indeed, the fruitful harvest is plenty but labourers are few. Let us all do what we can by picking the low hanging fruit. Let others see our life’s basket and say ‘by their fruit we know them”.
