–as CARICOM inches 57% closer to its ‘25 by 2025’ deadline

CARICOM Ministerial Taskforce (MTF) on Food Production and Food Security has announced it has collectively achieved 57 per cent of its ‘Vision 25 by 2025’ target to date.

The announcement last Friday comes after countries submitted reports detailing their production data for 2022 for targeted commodities, as CARICOM moves towards lowering the regional import bill by 25 per cent by the year 2025.

It was reported that products such as cocoa, dairy, meat, root crops, fruits, and poultry have already reached 96.13%, 84.36%, 72.28%, 70.91%, 70.77%, and 70.19%, respectively, for the targeted production volume set for the year 2025.

Moreover, countries such as Guyana, Belize Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Dominica, and Jamaica have made significant advances in the production of commodities such as ginger, turmeric, corn, soya bean, root crops, fruits, cocoa, poultry, meat, fish, table eggs, and dairy.

President Dr. Irfaan Ali recently noted that the Guyana government continues to open up tens of thousands of acres of new land in its bid to expand production in the country.

The report also indicated that for 2022, Guyana produced some 20,195 tonnes of ginger and turmeric, 144,289 tonnes of root crops, 21,870 tonnes of fish, and 40,749 tonnes of coconut.

In addition to the updates on member states’ production targets, attendees were also brought up to speed on several other notable achievements.

During the 104th Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED), Trade Policies for Animal and animal Products, a Regional Agricultural Health and Food Safety Policy, Special Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) guidelines for 19 commodities, and alternative SPS settlement mechanisms were approved.

Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha has noted that the foregoing achievements are commendable, as with the mechanisms at reference in place, a level playing field is being created, thereby making way for a more straightforward trade in agricultural products intra-regionally.

“These four achievements are testimony to the hard work of the MTF. If we are allowed to increase intra-regional trade, we will be well on the way to reducing the regional food import bill, which is the ultimate goal of CARICOM, in keeping with its food security agenda. In just one year, collaborative efforts among member states have yielded much success,” Minister Mustapha noted.

Minister Mustapha, who chairs the CARICOM MTF, indicated that several priority areas have been identified for 2023, among them agriculture insurance and financing, trade and E-agriculture, resource mobilisation, and trade support. These, he explained, will help to advance the efforts of the MTF and CARICOM as together they work towards achieving ‘Vision 25 by 2025’.

Monday’s meeting, which was held virtually, saw attendance from Ministers of Agriculture from across the region, along with representatives of the CARICOM Member States, the CARICOM Private Sector Organization (CPSO), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and other regional officials and stakeholders. Today’s meeting was also the ninth convened since the establishment of the MTF.

The next CARICOM MTF meeting will be held sometime in March.
Research has shown that the region imports, from out of the region, approximately 80 per cent of the food that it consumes, which amounts to approximately US$4 billion.