Even as the respective countries in the Caribbean continue to take their own separate tilts at bemoaning what they regard as the distressing state in which much of the region’s agricultural sector finds itself, there still appears to be no discernable region-wide move to respond to what is regarded as a looming crisis.
Evidence of an acute crisis in the region’s agriculture sector as a whole has long been reflected in its mounting food import bill which is now believed to be somewhere in the region of US$5 billion. Individual CARICOM member countries have been, in turn, taking passing tilts at the failure of the Caribbean to feed itself and last week the issue arose again at the Annual Review Conference of the Bank of Barbados in Bridgetown.
A report from the Barbadian capital on Monday stated that participants in the key review conference ranked agriculture second only to private sector development when asked to vote on which economic sectors ought to receive the greatest support in the drive to revive the economies of the region in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
An earlier report in the Barbados Nation had alluded to the fact that the agriculture sector continued to “take a beating” across several countries in the region though the report singled out Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago as having “flourishing agriculture industries.”
The report says that the views of attendees at the Barbados Central Bank Review Forum seemed to suggest that most countries in the region need to boost their agriculture sectors if the region as a whole is going to strengthen its food security situation.
While Guyana has long been identified as the lead country in the region insofar as the revival of its (the region’s) agricultural sector is concerned, it is questionable whether the authorities here have ever vigorously applied themselves to the lead role which they are expected to play in repairing the growing imbalance between regional food production and consumption. CARICOM Heads, meanwhile, have appeared, over the years to be prepared to trumpet the need for a practical realisation of what is believed to be, the so far unrealised food production capabilities of the region.
Back in April the issue of regional food security arose once again, predictably, at the level of rhetoric, during a ceremony here in Georgetown at which the former CARICOM Secretary General Irwin La Roque received Guyana’s recently appointed Ambassador to CARICOM George Talbot. The ceremony, reportedly, alluded to Guyana’s lead role in pursuit of the region’s food security agenda. That came against the backdrop of an earlier intervention by President Irfaan Ali during which he availed other regional Heads with a “Food Production and Food Security Agenda” which reportedly provides a detailed outline of the strategy and action plan for transforming the agriculture sector in the region. As it happens and in keeping with the trend in the region in treating with the issue of food security, little if anything has been heard specifically with regard to the on-the-ground implementation of that agenda. Presumably, action in the matter of taking the regional food security agenda forward now falls in the lap of the recently created Special Ministerial Task Force on Food Production and Food Security under the Chairmanship of Guyana’s Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha. It is no secret that regional bodies of this nature have a formidable reputation for inaction.
