The Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is scheduled to meet in a special session in Georgetown this week to deal with agriculture as the Region focuses on achieving food security in light of the spiraling cost of living.
The Twenty-Seventh Special Meeting of the COTED (Agriculture) will be convened on Wednesday at Le Meridien Pegasus, while a meeting of officials will be held today, the CARICOM Secretariat stated in a press release.
The Twenty-Seventh Special COTED on Agriculture comes just two weeks before the Agriculture Investment Forum scheduled from June 6-7 in Georgetown.
The Investment Forum is aimed at promoting the Region’s potential and attracting investment in the Agriculture Sector and is being spearheaded by President Bharrat Jagdeo who has lead responsibility for agriculture in CARICOM’s quasi-cabinet.
The Forum is being held against the background of regional commitment to Strengthening Agriculture for Sustainable Growth and Development in the Caribbean Community, also known as `The Jagdeo Initiative’.
The planning and execution of the Investment Forum, as well as follow-up action from the Agriculture Donor Conference held in Trinidad and Tobago in 2007 will be discussed at the special COTED meeting. The status of other elements of the Jagdeo Initiative will also be considered at the meeting, the release said.
Under the broad agenda item `Rising Cost of Living and Food Security’, ministers with responsibility for agriculture will benefit from the presentation of an analysis of the current supply situation globally, regionally and nationally, and the actions that were taken and were proposed to deal with the cost of living situation.
According to the release, delegates will focus their attention also on Research and Development and Food Availability, a Collaborative Public/Private Sector Approach to the Developing Food Situation and Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Measures.
The meeting will also review the project promoting CARICOM/CARIFORUM Food Security.
The Community, in an initial response to the rising cost of living, had taken a decision earlier this year to reduce the Common External Tariff (CET) on certain items, the release noted. This step was taken following the Twelfth Special Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government held in Georgetown last December at which the CET was identified as the most appropriate instrument for an intervention at the Community level to bring relief from the high cost of products. One of the main agenda items of that meeting was Poverty and the Rising Cost of Living, and that item has been recurring on the agenda of several other Community meetings, the release added.
