The past few months have brought with them a healthy measure of evidence that having, over many years, remained decidedly indifferent to its food security vulnerability, not least what, in most Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member territories, continues to be varying levels of dependence on extra-regional food imports, the region is seemingly now prepared to frontally address the issue. One uses the term ‘frontally,’ of course, having regard to the region’s embarrassing record of ‘false starts’ in this matter.
At the level of public events, this year, 2022 has witnessed an unprecedented regional focus on food security, that focus having been triggered by the sounding of a global alarm over food shortages and the consequences for populations in the world’s worst-affected countries. CARICOM member states, it has to be said, have continually ‘blown hot and cold’ over food security for a number of years, the past decade and more having been characterized by undertakings on enhancing food security that have caught attention for their rhetoric and little more.