…ahead of CARICOM meeting

Members from the CARICOM Private Sector Organisation (CPSO) met officials from the CARICOM Ministerial Taskforce on Food Production and Food Security to discuss priority agriculture commodities for targeted investment on Saturday.

This meeting formed part of the preliminary discussion to advance agriculture among CARICOM States ahead of the next CARICOM Heads of Government Meeting, which is scheduled for July 2021. During the discussion, Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha, who also serves as Chairman of the Ministerial Taskforce on Food Production and Food Security, said the taskforce was pleased to engage the CPSO as it seeks to further develop their partnership and enhance the commercialisation of agriculture in the Region.

“We are encouraged that we will have a fruitful partnership given that the CPSO has already committed to preparing investment business cases on agri-food opportunities under your proposed ‘Twenty-five by 2025’ strategy to reducing the regional food import bill. One of the areas that the CARICOM Agri-Food System Strategy seeks to frontally address is the investment in production, research, and development.

“The implementation plan of the strategy identifies the private sector as a key stakeholder as we advance the CARICOM Agri-Food Systems Agenda. Therefore, today we are pleased to engage the CARICOM Private Sector Organization (CPSO) as we seek to further develop our partnership and enhance the commercialization of agriculture in the region,” the minister said.

The meeting was convened for members of the Ministerial Taskforce and the CPSO to come to a consensus on the priority commodities to be targeted, and for the determination of the investment and fiscal support required for each sector. Programme Manager for CARICOM’s Agricultural and Agro-Industrial Development Program, Mr. Shaun Baugh addressed some of the priority crops and commodities that regional investment should be targeted towards.

“During the last meeting, we had a lengthy discussion on what each Member State considered priority crops or commodities that regional investment should be targeted towards. We’ve come up with a list of what we project would be the opportunities. The first one has to do with poultry meat. We have data telling us that the total import into the CARICOM Region is 252,000 metric tons valued at over US$251 million. We are putting forward a potential replacement opportunity, over three years, of a 45 per cent replacement. This is not cast in stone but rather a conservative approach.

“The second has to do with corn and rice in relation to feed production. Our data is telling us that we have over one million metric tons being imported per year at approximately US $440 million. For this, we are targeting a replacement of around 20 per cent over the next three years. Meat is another key area. For beef, pork, and mutton we’re seeing over 43,000 metric tons being imported into the Caribbean with just over US $138 million in value. For these commodities, we are targeting a 15 per cent reduction,” he said.

Mr. Baugh also noted that for niche vegetables, the data indicates 137 metric tonnes valued at around US $50 million.

“The benefits that we see for the Region through these initiatives are the creation of new industries throughout the Region, and an increase in inter-regional trade. We should also be able to achieve a greater amount of food security and food independence, and this is seen as critical considering what has come as a result of COVID-19,” he said.

Mr. Baugh also said these measures will also promote employment and wealth creation as well as economic stability in the Region. This, he added, remains critical as it would allow member states to maintain and keep wealth within the Region. Coconut was also listed as the sixth commodity for consideration.
Head of the CPSO Secretariat, Dr. Patrick Antoine said that the organisation has been focusing on two of the target areas so far.

“By way of update, we’ve been working on poultry meat and the issue of the niche vegetables. We saw that as the first draft of proposals that would be presented to the Heads of Governments so the idea is to see how we move with these and we’ve chosen them because they touch on virtually every country, as poultry meat is the biggest opportunity. The other opportunities are implications that can be addressed or worked on subsequently.

What you will get from the CPSO is really where the region’s priority stands and how these things look when we’ve analysed them. The import data and the opportunities on the face of it is one thing, when you analyse them in terms of whether they make sense and what are the conditions that will make them viable for investment it is quite another. The Ministerial Team will have to take some hard decisions in terms of what kind of regime we’re looking at,” Dr. Antoine said.

Dr. Antoine further stated that while there are several opportunities across the Region, Member States will have to facilitate the creation of skills and scope to access market opportunities in other markets to aggregate them. He also said there would be instances where countries will be forced to displace old technology, which may be used by at-risk groups and farmers.

Minister Mustapha pointed out that although the Taskforce is working to minimise and ultimately remove barriers to trade among CARICOM States, each country would have to develop legislations that are country-specific to safeguard agriculture production and trade within that country.

Going forward, it is expected that a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) accompanied by letters from both the Taskforce and the CPSO will be exchanged, followed by a detailed report for the various Heads of Governments to consider ahead of the upcoming CARICOM Heads of Government Conference.