A February 29 article published in the Forbes Daily and written by Barbadian journalist, Daphne Ewing-Chow, says that the Caribbean’s food systems are among the most vulnerable globally, attributing the condition to the ongoing hostile climate change conditions. The writer’s disclosure is based on what she says is “the latest update from the University of Notre Dame’s Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) Country Index,” and which provides ratings for the thirteen member countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
The disclosure comes on the heels of what, just over a year ago, had been dismal commentaries from the World Bank Group regarding a condition of worrying food security in the region. The information derived from the ND-GAINS’ (Notre Dame Global Adaptation Administration Initiative) annual assessment of one hundred and eighty nine (189) countries states that out of the thirteen (13) CARICOM member countries listed in the ND-GAINS annual assessment, Trinidad and Tobago is listed in the upper half (#73 of 189 countries) and Suriname (#85) ranked in the upper 50th percentile worldwide “with respect to the climate vulnerability of their food systems.” Among the “upper middle income” countries named in the Study, St. Kitts & Nevis and Antigua & Barbuda were the only countries in the bottom 10% of the ranking, assuming positions 176 and 177 respectively on the 189-country scale.
Other CARICOM countries listed in the assessment were Jamaica (#10), Belize (#102), Barbados (#109), Bahamas (#116), Guyana (#122), Dominica (#125), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (#130), Grenada (#131), and Saint Lucia (#139). Caribbean countries, the article says, possesses some of the most “climate vulnerable food systems in the world”, circumstances that heavily influenced the region’s robust lobby for support for its environmental challenges through climate financing at the 28th United Nations Climate Change conference, held from 30 November to 13 December in Dubai, UAE.
The disclosure regarding climate vulnerability of food security systems in 189 countries derived from criteria that included food production, food demand, nutrition and rural population, according to the Ewing-Chow article. The article also states that selected indicators also included “population growth projections, dependency on food imports, rural population statistics, agricultural capacity, and rates of child malnutrition.”
The disclosure comes even as the Caribbean is engaged in mounting a response to what high profile international organizations, including the World Bank Group, says are worrying food security vulnerabilities confronting the region. The news, which may well have come as a surprise to some CARICOM countries, has triggered a response spearheaded by Guyana, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, which includes ramping up the region’s food production bona fides through an expanded food production undertaking as well as the launch of a regional food security terminal designed to provide timely responses to food security emergencies in parts of the region. Governments in the region have long acknowledged their countries’ vulnerability to climate change which, in some member countries, compound substantive weaknesses in their food security bona fides. The ongoing regional food security initiative focuses on creating a mechanism for moving food from countries with a proven capacity to accelerate production, notably Guyana, to other territories that are still heavily dependent on extra-regional food imports. “Our geographical location makes Caribbean food systems susceptible to the vagaries of climate change,” CARICOM’s Programme Manager, Agriculture, Shaun Baugh is quoted as saying recently.
Progress in the direction of creating a food security regime that would ease the region’s food security woes, through the two countries, Guyana and Barbados, at the fore of creating the Food Security Terminal, had been criticized for failing, over a protracted period of time, to provide updates on the pace of progress towards the completion of that exercise of creating a mechanism for the movement of food from the major food-producing countries in the region, notably Guyana, to the more vulnerable countries in the region.
The food security vulnerabilities of the Caribbean are widely believed to have had consequential nutrition-related health effects which continue to be a matter of concern in some countries. Setting aside these challenges, consequential high food prices in the region were attributed in some countries that are known to have to face “prolonged droughts, heat waves, increased susceptibility to torrential rain and flooding, intensified storm events, unpredictable weather patterns, and new vulnerabilities to pests affecting humans, animals, and plants,” according to the Forbes article.
