MINISTER of Agriculture Robert Persaud has said that practical steps to link small farmers to regional and extra-regional markets will ensure that the momentum developed in recent years, bringing agriculture from the back burner to the front burner of regional thinking is maintained and farmers retain the prominence they  deserve. He made the comment while delivering the feature address at the formal opening ceremony of a Caribbean Farmers Network (CaFAN) workshop on production and marketing planning for linking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) small farmers to markets in the region and well as further afield.
The CaFAN workshop, supported and sponsored by the CARICOM Secretariat, is currently ongoing at the Princess International Hotel at Providence.
It started on Tuesday and closes today.
Participating are over 50 delegates from small farmers organizations in Guyana and from CaFAN’s fourteen other member countries, including Haiti and Monsterrat.
The CaFAN production and marketing workshop aims at finding ways to promote increased availability of regionally produced nutritious food at competitive prices, to satisfy domestic and regional markets, as well as for extra regional export.
The CARICOM-supported initiative is in keeping with its Regional Policy for Food and Nutrition Security (RPFNS), approved at the 2010 Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) on Agriculture.
The CaFAN workshop also benefited from support from the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA-ACP-EU), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) the European Union (EU) and the All ACP Agricultural Commodities Program (AAACP).
A framework for a regional programme to organise production and marketing of selected crops, including a basket of fruits, vegetables and root crops and tubers will be identified at the end of the workshop to kick-start the programme.
In remarks, Minister Persaud said the workshop was occurring against a backdrop of food insecurity and escalating food import bills among countries within the region.
He commended CaFAN for the initiative, and said that a planned programme of linkages and networking will enable small farmers to think regionally instead of parochially, and with support, will allow them to increase their productivity towards a food and nutrition secure Caribbean.
“We need to see the sustained support for small farmers at the regional level, to make their efforts more productive, more sustainable and profitable.”
He said, “As individuals we cannot win, but together we stand a good chance of survival and victory.”