The recent disclosure by CARICOM that the region has collectively reached 57% of the 25×2025 extra-regional food import reduction target would almost certainly have come as a surprise, perhaps even a shock, to the people of the Caribbean. What is not clear, is whether what we are being told means, in effect, that we are ‘half way there’ and if, in fact, we might, even now, be able to set our sights on realizing the 25% reduction in extra-regional food imports before 2025.
In circumstances where the Caribbean has been the recipient of quite a few food security wake up calls from high-profile international organizations including, relatively recently, the World Bank and where, as in the instance of Haiti, particularly, the food security situation is growing incrementally worse, it is important that accurate and easy to interpret information on the pace of progress towards 25×2025 be made available, through the CARICOM Secretariat on a regular basis. Here, it should be said that such information should be attended by the relevant explanations and clarifications and CARICOM, through the respective in-country channels, should be equipped to respond to public requests for clarification. Here it has to be said that previous intra-regional food security undertakings have suffered from a decisive lack of a free, continual and effective flow of information between Caribbean governments and their respective populations.
Indeed, the region’s various regional food security ‘false starts’ are a matter of public record. What we have to go on, so far, based on a statement issued by the Ministry of Agriculture here in Guyana, is that information on the region’s arrival at 57% of its target derives largely from “reports” submitted by CARICOM member countries on “production data” for 2022. Those reports, again provided information on 2022 production targets reached for a number of agricultural products. As it happens the blitz of statistics made public do not, in themselves, provide a definitive indicator as to just how far away we are from our regional 25×2025 target. On the same score, it would of course do us a power of good if the people of the region can be provided with routine, reliable, simple to interpret information on the pace of progress towards 25×2025 given the overwhelming importance of the initiative.
Here, one might well inquire as to whether we can now anticipate a comprehensive update on the state of readiness of the Regional Food Terminal, responsibility for the creation of which has been assigned to Barbados and Guyana. Certainly, there is an expectation that such an update would be forthcoming some time during this month’s staging of the Barbados Agro Fest event and that there would be further updates on the issue of its operational readiness, going forward. The statement from the Ministry of Agriculture, here in Guyana, advised that countries submitted reports detailing their production data for 2022 for targeted commodities, “as CARICOM moves towards lowering the regional import bill by 25 per cent by the year 2025.”
It was reported that products such as cocoa, dairy, meat, root crops, fruits, and poultry have already reached 96.13 per cent, 84.36 per cent, 72.28 per cent, 70.91 per cent, 70.77 per cent and 70.19 per cent, respectively, for the targeted production volume set for 2025. Moreover, we have learnt that countries in the region… Guyana, Belize, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Dominica and Jamaica have made significant advances in the production of commodities such as ginger, turmeric, corn, soya bean, root crops, fruits, cocoa, poultry, meat, fish, table eggs, and dairy.
The report also indicated that for 2022, Guyana produced some 20,195 metric tonnes of ginger and turmeric, 144,289 metric tonnes of root crops, 21,870 metric tonnes of fish, and 40,749 metric tonnes of coconut. It would be more than useful to know what all this means in terms of the extent of the ground that we have covered on the 25×2025 undertaking. There used to be a time, not long ago, when analyses of the state of global food security by reputable international agencies always decidedly ‘cleared the Caribbean’ – with the exception of Haiti, of the ‘danger zone’. This, of late, has not, altogether, been the case. Going forward, therefore, questions regarding regional food security have moved much closer to the top of the list of priority interests of people of the region. If the 25×2025 objective is being treated as a benchmark that will determine the extent of the progress that the region is making in pursuit of the shoring up of its food security bona fides, then the various regional institutions, including CARICOM and the various state agencies around the region, have a duty to disseminate accurate and, equally decipherable information not just on 25×2025, but on those various other benchmarks that we have set in the trek towards regional food security.
