President of the Trinidad and Tobago Farmers’ Society, Mrs. Donna Sukhoo, yesterday said agriculture policy makers in the region have failed miserably in promoting agriculture as a viable area of trade and as a means of ensuring food security.

Speaking at a forum to strengthen local partnership with the Caribbean Farmers Network (CaFAN) at the Red House on High Street, Kingston, Georgetown, Sukhoo emphasised that for agriculture to get the attention it deserves, farmers have to be masters of their own destiny.

President Bharrat Jagdeo was also critical of the regional policy makers’ approach to agriculture on Thursday in his address to participants at the conclusion of a two day private/public sector consultation hosted by the CARICOM Secretariat to advance agri-business in the region.

The President told participants at the forum at the Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown, that the transformation of agriculture in the region in the next decade and beyond will be determined by how seriously regional policy makers treat the sector.

The Guyanese Head of State stressed that for too long agriculture has suffered neglect at the hands of regional governments.

Sukhoo shared the president’s sentiment and called on the Rice Producers Association (RPA), the Pomeroon Woman’s Agro-Processor Association and the Region 10 Farmers’ Association to strengthen their bond with CaFAN so that regional farmers will have a stronger voice on issues affecting them.

She said farmers will have to take this stand to improve their livelihoods and the prospects of agriculture to make the sector a prosperous enterprise in the 21st century and beyond.

CaFAN Chief Coordinator Mr. Jethro Greene contended that it is almost baffling how agriculture has been neglected in the region, when the policy makers know people can survive without television but not food.

He dismissed the view that investment in agriculture is costly to maintain, and pointed out that rich nations which recognised the situation is otherwise had fashioned their economic structure around the sector, paving the opening-up of other areas of wealth.

Greene explained that if regional policy makers had been aware of the multi-faceted benefits of agriculture a long time ago, today they would not have been “running around like chickens with their heads cut off to deal with the food crisis”.

The top CaFAN official also took issue with the claims by some consultants who are of the view that farmers are illiterate and cannot represent themselves.

Greene said it is unfortunate that these persons, who boost fancy qualifications to their names, but have never planted in their life, resort to such derogatory remarks, when in fact, all they do is write reports which are void of any tangible benefits.

He said the innate experiences of farmers cannot be taught at any university; and for this reason, they must not be excluded in the policy-making process.

Green pointed out that there are some “con men” in the region, purporting to be farmers representatives, and under this guise, have obtained millions of dollars from the donor community to carry out various projects which had no trickled down benefits to farmers.

These tricksters, he reasoned may have caused regional policy makers to harbour a negative view of agriculture, but he noted CaFAN was formed to remove these malpractices and give a greater and more potent voice to farmers.

RPA General Secretary Mr. Dharamkumar Seeraj said his organisation fully supports the work of CaFAN because it has long been cognisant that agriculture is the vehicle to prosperity.

CaFAN is a farmer-based, legally registered non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The organisation was formed by farmers’ organisations across the Caribbean in 2002 in response to the poor representation of farmers in the agriculture sector. Its objectives are:

* to enhance the ability of Caribbean farmers’ organisations to deliver services to members and to increase intra and extra-regional trade;

* to increase communication and exchange of ideas, experiences, resources, information and technology among farmers’ associations in the region;

* to raise awareness, improve advocacy and networking to collectively influence decisions on strategic issues affecting regional agriculture; and
* to mobilise resources for and on behalf of network members.