– Persaud says CARICOM’s inadequate support for the Jagdeo Initiative to blame
Agencies from the United Nations (UN) and the World Bank have warned of rising food prices, the most recent coming from Oxfam, with the prediction that the average price of staple foods will more than double in the next 20 years, leading to an unprecedented reversal in human development.
Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud, in an invited comment, contends that the Caribbean Region seems ill-prepared, a problem that is due in part to inadequate support from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.
“The region is paying the price for insufficient attention and sloth in attending to the Jagdeo Initiative,” he said.
The minister stressed that the major ripple effect of changes in the supply/demand dynamic will impact across the Caribbean and, in this context, the Jagdeo Initiative focused on advancement at both the regional and national contexts.

Forewarned

The Jagdeo Initiative was conceptualized in 2003 and at the 25th CARICOM Heads of Government meeting in 2004, regional leaders agreed that there is a need for such a strategy and endorsed the process that would allow for agricultural development.
The Jagdeo Initiative aims at developing and implementing targeted, focused and practical interventions to overcome the constraints facing agriculture.
It has been endorsed throughout the Caribbean for its thorough analysis of the state of agriculture, its hard look at internal and external factors, and for deepening the discussion of fundamental areas that need improvement, reform and initiation.
The Jagdeo Initiative identifies and defines key, crucial and binding constraints to agricultural repositioning in the Caribbean Region.
Among the constraints identified are limited financing and inadequate new investments; outdated inefficient agricultural health and food safety systems; inadequate research and development; fragmented and unorganized private sectors; insufficient land and water distribution and management systems; deficient and uncoordinated risk management measures; and inadequate transport systems.
Locally, pursuing the Jagdeo Initiative has seen several interventions being made by the current administration to help realise the country’s agricultural potential.
These include the new extension services programme that entails several components aimed at aiding cultivation and production, implementation of new technologies and research.

Sinful Import Bill

Persaud proffered that there is much potential in the region and yet the Caribbean has a food import bill of billions. He described this as sinful.
“This must be reversed,” he said.
The minister pointed out that Guyana’s reality today is one of abundance and accessibility to food by all the people – a result of sensible planning and the implementation of appropriate policy interventions.
“Guyana is the leading food producer and will continue to offer its support in aiding the region. In fact, our Grow More Food Campaign has the supply for the region, once countries remove the barriers,” Persaud said.
He contends that Guyana is food secure, a status Guyana is seeking to maintain.
“Our commitment to national agriculture has been outstanding as compared to the rest of the Caribbean Region,” Persaud said.

Clear Indicators

According to Persaud, the consensus reached by all the experts is that there is a need to advance agriculture initiatives in order to cope with rising prices.
The World Bank warned last month that rising food prices have pushed 44 million people into poverty since last June.
The UN last week said that food prices are likely to hit new highs in the next few weeks, triggering unrest in developing countries. The average global price of cereals jumped by 71 percent to a new record in April this year.
European farmers are contending with the driest growing conditions in more than three decades, drought threatens crops in China and flooding and heat ruin harvests in the United States. The gauge of eight commodities is 73 percent higher than a year ago; and according to the UN, global food prices rose to near a record last month, adding to inflation that has spurred at least two dozen central banks and the European Central Bank to raise interest rates this year.
The high cost of food also contributed to riots across Northern Africa and the Middle East that toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia this year.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) predicts that the world food production will have to rise 70 percent by 2050 to feed a population forecast to grow to 9 billion people.