Dear editor,

I would like to suggest that instead of being fixated on the Gross National Product (GNP), we really try hard to achieve gross national happiness. It is possible — and is happening — where countries have been recording consistent increases in the goods and services produced by its citizens (GNP), hand in hand with increasing poverty, starvation, deprivation, suicides, mental illness and crime, all of which reflect a deep unhappiness and unease existing within the society.

The rise of corporations worldwide and the very special relationship developed between them and the peoples’ representatives has, in some cases, led to the theft, ownership, control and privatisation of more and more goods and services formerly within the public domain.

Indigenous knowledge on curative herbs and plants is being replaced with experimental genetically-engineered vaccines and pharmaceuticals. Family farms and bio-diversity in crops, food and animal feed are being overtaken by mono-cropping agriculture and industrial animal factories with grain-fed animals, and in some countries both water and electricity have been completely privatised.

There is rural to urban drift existing in Jamaica. However, the experience in other countries is that this drift quickly becomes a flood of dispossessed small farmers and land owners who have to flee the might of the corporations that are seeking more and more lands for mono-cropping. We have to decide on the kind of development we wish to pursue: Do we want a development where there are rampant mental disorders — one in every 20 persons being severely depressed and on psychiatric pharmaceuticals; one in four persons having cancer; one in 50 children having autism; allergies and birth defects; agricultural lands dying as a result of industrial farming and chemical spraying; and water resources contaminated with

cancer-causing endocrine disrupting chemicals, and so on?

If our development trajectory continues along the existing line, we will definitely have this unhappiness to deal with — much of which is almost overwhelming us already. We could concentrate on the development of our farmers and farms, particularly our small, medium and family farms, and growing organic foods in our urban spaces. Agriculture could be incentivised to encourage both young and old onto the land, and the unearthing and transferral of indigenous knowledge on seed-saving and agricultural practices.

We could use sustainable organic agro-ecological methods to produce niche crops and medicinal herbs, the protection of our biodiversity being non-negotiable. Our people would be guaranteed wholesome nutritious foods and medicines that work without side effects and are created without ecological contamination and destruction of our ecological heritage. Gross national happiness would increase — and that’s what we all seek: happiness — and so would gross national product.

Carlton Stewart

Willowdene, St Catherine

stewart.carlton@gmail.com