By Pushpa Balgobin
in Paramaribo, Suriname
Four years after the Caricom trade council initiated a committee to begin implementation of comprehensive Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures (which ensure plant health and safety for export) Guyana is slated to be one of the countries responsible for moving the process along.
Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) Agriculture Health and Food Safety Specialist Carol Thomas told Stabroek News that market access has been flawed for many years because of a lack of science-based data. She said that “a lot of time we cannot access the market because we don’t have the proper systems in place to meet the requirements that have been established.”
Thomas said that to meet international requirements the Caribbean region needed to speed up and