The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) yesterday sent a strong signal to Caribbean governments, urging them to build on their current agricultural momentum to cope with the consequences of globalization on their economies.
The charge came from Director General Dr Jacques Diouf at the 21st Special Me-eting of Caricom’s Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) held at the Caricom Secretariat, Liliendaal.
Diouf said the region’s net agriculture trade position had dropped from a surplus of US$3 billion at the end of the 1980s to a deficit of $2.2 billion in the period 2002 to 2004. It is against this background that the FAO started to work with the governments of the region in their launch of individual and regional programmes which integrate all the elements of agriculture including small scale harvesting, drainage and irrigation, crop intensification and diversification.
However, he noted that most of those programmes were at the pilot level with a thrust to increase production and supply and also ensuring competitiveness through productivity in the agriculture sector.
He said the pilot stage for all such programmes would end in December this year and so it was time for the region to begin planning ahead for a much larger and encompassing programme.
“We need to build on this momentum to try to get a serious programme with adequate funding if we are to change the situation and reverse the trend in this period, particularly when we are seeing the consequences of globalization on the agriculture economies of Caricom countries,” Diouf told finance and agriculture ministers of the region.
He cautioned that action only at the level of the FAO would not be adequate and that participation at all levels was integral. “We need action on the national level… on the part of heads, their agriculture and finance ministers because the majority of these programmes will have to be implemented at the national level.”
He said coordination and facilitation could be organized at the regional level but national participation is essential since the majority of the programmes would have to be implemented at that level. “Unless we have the commitment of the heads and [know that they will support] their ministers it would be difficult for us to achieve the goal we set of launching a more concrete programmes by January 2008.”
He said the timeliness of such decisions was important in order for the region to make its proposals known at the international donor’s conference.
President Bharrat Jagdeo, who heads the Caricom quasi cabinet for agriculture in the region, welcomed delegates to yesterday’s meeting and sided with the FAO director general in his call for a more serious approach from Caricom with regard to agriculture.
He said it was impossible for the region’s agriculture industry to be transformed through pilot projects. “We have to think big and see the bigger picture
