`These initiatives have had limited, if any, success, however, because they have been prepared and executed in isolation from other policies. Actions taken have thus been sparse, diffuse… and uncoordinated. Moreover, few of them have been translated into operational instruments with regional core funding for concrete action programmes specifically addressing the unifying and cross-cutting synergistic issue of food and nutrition security’
A new food and nutrition policy for the region aims to be “practical” and faced with similar policies whose implementation was stunted; officials say that this one will be different.
“A lot of what we are talking about here is not new. It is already happening on the ground in programmes which are not connected,” said Robert Best, an official with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Best, the Programme Manager of Promoting Caricom/ Cariforum Food Security Project said that the Regional Policy for Food and Nutrition Security (RPFNS) is seeking to connect these programmes to have a structured approach.
A workshop to review the draft RPFNS wrapped up here recently with Caricom states agreeing “in principle” to the document. After it is finalized with recommendations included, it will be taken in two weeks to the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED). The policy has to be approved at the ministerial level and then implementation can begin.
Three areas have been identified for immediate implementation and these are an early warning system; a public awareness campaign as it relates to a healthy Caribbean diet to reduce obesity and non-communicable diseases; and increasing production through the value chain approach. “Those are ones that we can do now,” Sergio Garcia, the Programme Manager – Agriculture and Industry, in the Caricom Secretariat told Stabroek News. Several other areas have been listed as priority.
Garcia said an action plan has been started and while there are many things to be done, not everything can be done at once. International development partners have committed to help with the policy, he said. By December, the action plan should be completed
But with several agriculture-focused programmes such as the Jagdeo Initiative languishing, Garcia said that this one will be different. “There (are) many things that we haven’t done,” he acknowledged. The draft RPFNS notes that beginning with the Regional Food and Nutrition Plan in 1973, several regional frameworks have been advanced that have the potential to respond to …threats to food security. These include, more recently, the Regional Transformation Program in Agriculture, the Caricom Office of Trade Negotiation (OTN), the Caricom/FAO Regional Special Program for Food Security (SPFS), the Jagdeo Initiative, and the Caribbean Cooperation in Health (CCH) Initiatives.
“These initiatives have had limited, if any, success, however, because they have been prepared and executed in isolation from other policies. Actions taken have thus been sparse, diffuse… and uncoordinated. Moreover, few of them have been translated into operational instruments with regional core funding for concrete action programmes specifically addressing the unifying and cross-cutting synergistic issue of food and nutrition security,” it says.
Garcia, who joined Caricom just over a year ago, said that things are being done differently. He pointed out that traditionally, policies are written by persons in the secretariat and consultants but the RPFNS was compiled by a technical working group comprising representatives of the member states “so they have developed ownership and they will implement it because they have written it…that’s the big difference with this one. I expect a lot, a different change on how things (are) done.”
But he says, to really advance the policy, regional states where agriculture is important, have to lobby at the highest level. “This is where our ministers…from the productive countries that should take the process forward. They have to convince everybody to really jump on it,” said Garcia. Within Caricom, three or four countries can feed the region and they need to work towards this, he said. “I like results.”
Regional food and nutrition security is a complex problem, says Best. He cites the project he heads a component which works towards developing a value chain approach, whereby farmers particularly small farmers work with buyers, exporters, food processers or supermarkets to improve efficiency, productivity, and the values and volumes of food that they growing. “In an absolute sense we haven’t made a big difference to the volumes on the ground but what we’ve done is gotten the value chain to work more closely together to improve post-harvest losses and so that’s a very practical thing which the policy is proposing to expand,” he said. The FPFNS would try to put more resources behind these both at the regional and national level and try to make an impact on nutrition, he said.
Guyana has complained of the difficulties in accessing the Caricom market for fresh produce. “I think ultimately the policy-makers need to intervene and pursue strategies which will promote that kind of trade,” said Best. Things are moving but “not fast enough”, he said. While the regional food import bill is over US$3.5 billion annually, Best pointed out that an FAO study found that a lot of the fresh fruit and vegetables the region consumes are grown within the region. He said when speaking about food, this needs to be separated into at least three categories: the imported food that is used to manufacture food in the region for example corn to feed chicken or wheat for flour; the food grown here; and food which can’t be produced here.
All these are part of the food and nutrition requirements of the region and we need to balance what we are growing and can grow better with what we are manufacturing and can probably manufacture more cheaply and what we have no choice but to import because we don’t have it here, he said. Mostly, he pointed out, when questions are raised, it mostly has to do what the region can grow and what is not being addressed is the fact that there are some things which can’t be grown or manufactured here or it can be done much cheaply elsewhere.
So for the items that the region cannot manufacture, there should be marketing intelligence and trade systems in place and reduced import charges to ensure that those things come in as cheaply as possible, he said. For those items manufactured here, cost-effectiveness is key while for the food grown here production must be increased.
But there is another dimension and this is the need to tighten up on costs related to food distribution because a large part of what the consumer pays for food in a marketplace is for services not goods, Best said.
The answer to the food and nutrition security question is a complex one that is why it has required such a long process in formulating the policy and priority areas need to be identified and move forward with, he added.
