…receives full support from regional leaders

HEADS of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have fully endorsed a new project proposal entitled “Building Food Security through Innovation, Resilience, Sustainability and Empowerment” introduced by President Dr. Irfaan Ali, during the 44 Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government held from February 15-17 in Nassau, Bahamas.

Guyana has pledged US$2M towards financing and implementing the project; this project will also benefit from the US$100M line of credit under the CARICOM Sustainability Agriculture Credit Facility, which uses Republic Bank Limited as a lender and the US$28 million in financing that United States government pledged to Caribbean countries last year.

The plan was introduced as the regional leaders received an update on the progress made by the CARICOM Ministerial Task Force on Food Production and Food Security (MTF). This task force will also oversee the mobilisation of resources for the project and its implementation.

The lead Head of Government with responsibility for Agriculture and Agriculture Development in the Quasi-Cabinet, Dr. Ali, was commended by CARICOM leaders for his leadership on the agri-food systems agenda.

His new plan includes the expansion of hydroponics, the process of growing plants in sand, gravel, or liquid, with added nutrients but without soil. This is according to CARICOM Chairman and Prime Minister of The Bahamas, Philip Davis, as he gave an update on the progress made on the CARICOM 25 by 25 initiative, during a press conference on Friday, in The Bahamas.

Twenty-five by 25 is the regional pledge by CARICOM Heads to increase food security by reducing the regional food importation value by at least 25 percent by 2025. 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.

Also speaking on the issue at the press conference, Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, noted that serious progress has been made in addressing sanitary and phytosanitary barriers to regional trade, which had been seen as an impediment to achieving 25 by 25.

She noted however, that advancing 25 by 25 remains a work in progress.

“We are conscious that there are some things that still remain to be done with sanitary and phytosanitary barriers in order to allow for the efficient movement of agricultural products across the region. This has been one of the areas with serious progress over the last year to 18 months within the community. We anticipate that we will see more,” Mottley said.

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.

“The reality is that it will take probably until 2025 to come to full fruition and for us to get the benefit of it. There is a lot of hurting by our people in the region because of the increases in food prices and fertiliser, over the course of the last year in particular, since the Ukraine war. There is good progress being made but we are not yet there. But we hope that our voices can continue to encourage Caribbean people. Ensuring that we play our part is absolutely vital for us going forward in this world,” Mottley related.

According to a Communique issued at the end of the conference, the Heads of Government have requested that the CARICOM Secretariat accelerate its efforts in the mobilisation of resources towards the achievement of the 25 by 2025 initiative.

They also requested the CARICOM Private Sector Organization Inc. (CPSO) to hasten the pace of implementation of its various agricultural investment projects.

It was just earlier this month that the MTF had informed that CARICOM members have collectively achieved 57 per cent of its ‘Vision 25 by 2025’ target thus far.

This was after countries submitted reports detailing their production data for 2022 for targetted commodities, as CARICOM moves towards lowering the regional import bill by 25 per cent by the year 2025.

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 targetted production volume set for the year 2025.

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.

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’.