Editor: We’re a group of concerned citizens who would like someone to tell us why grocery costs keep rising each month. Why can we no longer afford to buy fresh vegetables? In this fertile, agricultural country of ours, tinned veggies are cheaper. It doesn’t make sense.

Why does a 400 gm. package of Breeze cost $3.55 one month and $4.10 the next? That’s quite a jump. {{more}}

And why don’t some restaurateurs serve beef or ox tails any more? Answer – because in recent months the wholesale prices have skyrocketed.

A short while ago we heard that a veterinarian has to approve imported meats. Most, if not all, industrialized nations have lifted the ban on beef from Canada (a relatively inexpensive place to get it), yet St. Vincent hasn’t. Why?

What about the ministries of Agriculture, and Commerce and Industry? What part do they play in all this?

We all need food, water and air to merely exist.

And development of self-esteem, and then “self-actualization”, according to psychologist A. H. Maslow, cannot proceed without the first basic in the “hierarchy of needs”: food.

We don’t believe that the rising costs are due solely to higher oil prices. Nor is it entirely due to the expansion of some grocery stores. If there are valid reasons, fine, I guess we’ll have to live with it, although in many cases this will be extremely hard to do.

But, if a basic necessity that we all need for our existence, as well as for our growth as individuals (and thereby as a nation) is impeded by people practising that nasty cardinal sin of greed, then we think this should be brought to the attention of the rest of the nation, who are suffering because of it.

Concerned Group