The Caribbean Community (Caricom) food import reduction programme 25 by 25 will see setbacks due to the impact of Hurricane Beryl on a number of countries’ agricultural sector and other sectors, Chair-person President Irfaan Ali said.
Caricom has begun to analyse the damage done and set long, medium- and short-term plans for getting back some semblance of normalcy soonest. And with a focus on agriculture, the chairman of the ministerial taskforce will this week hold a meeting to begin those discussions.
“It is important to note that Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Jamaica, St Lucia, and Barbados, were all islands and countries that were on track mostly in achieving the 25 by 2025 targets set by themselves,” Ali said in an address yesterday on the impacts of the hurricane that has devastated some countries.
“I asked the chair of the ministerial task force to give me an assessment and from his assessment, it is sad, with its immediate effect, that Hurricane Beryl in some instances would have damaged or completely wiped out the agricultural sector,” he added.
Caricom is hoping to reduce its US$5 billion food import bill by 25% by 2025 by implementing food and nutrition programmes.
In 2022, following the conclusion of the Caricom Heads of Government meeting in Suriname, a communique said that the majority of Caricom member states had developed and submitted to the Ministerial Task Force (MTF) on Food Production and Food Security, their national targets which were expected to help achieve the lowering of food imports by 25% by 2025.
The Caricom Chair said that Hurricane Beryl has been an impediment to those plans, since not only is the initial investment and cost of damage concerning to him as the Lead Head in Agriculture, but looking at the long-term investment costs to rebuild the infrastructure, to find resources and recapitalize the farmers, was heartbreaking.
“As you know most of the farmers and fisherfolk are not insured, a lot of the crops damaged are long term crops also, seven years duration to maturity, …to get high yielding variety, to get intercropping in place whilst reinvestment is placed in those long-term crops,” he lamented.
He said this was why a lot of short, medium and long-term issues in the agricultural sector, in the region, must be addressed in a comprehensive way.
In Barbados, for example, he pointed out, the fisheries sector which accounts for a significant part of catering to its tourism market, has faced serious setbacks.
“When you have a situation where …agriculture in general but specifically the fisheries sector is severely damaged, it requires tremendous investment for infrastructure, retooling, grants, sorting the initial livelihood of fisherfolks, getting back their assets so that they can go back to making their livelihood,” Ali reasoned.
“But when you have that compounded by the main revenue earner of the country being affected by tourism, it tells you the magnitude of how the situation is amplified. So in Barbados, the fisheries sector was tremendously affected. From our initial assessment, one-third of Bridgetown’s fishing harbour was destroyed, and over 200 fishing vessels were damaged and des-troyed, severely impacting the fishing industry. And of course, the families of the fisherfolks there in Barbados have suffered not only tremendous loss of assets but loss of livelihood,” he added.
Apart from the fishing sector, he pointed to Barbados’ agricultural sector where he said, “hundreds of acres of agricultural commodities were lost.”
Turning to Grenada, Ali noted the devastation and wipe out on the islands of Carricaou and Petite Martinique. “The livestock, permanent crops, cash crops, all the investment in agriculture were completely destroyed in these two islands, whilst in Grenada, there has been a tremendous impact on the agricultural sector and production. As I said, the assessment there and in the other islands is continuing, but we are very concerned about the immediate and medium-term ability of Grenada to quickly get its productive capacity in agriculture,” he said.
Ali said he spoke to St Vincent and the Grena-dines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and it is heart-wrenching there. “St Vincent was also making tremendous strides in the 25 by 2025 action plan. In St Vincent, an initial assessment shows you have more than 80% damage and losses to agriculture. Immediate production has been taken out that will affect cost, livelihood, and supply. Supply and demand have a relationship with price as we know. On Union Island, almost 100% of the agriculture… was completely lost. These islands depend heavily on permanent crops, whether it is the fruit trees that are important but in the case of St Vincent and the Grenadines, the bananas, the plantains, livestock, and vegetables… the losses have been enormous,” he noted.
Over in St Lucia, though the losses were not as terrible as in Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ali said that “there will also be tremendous setbacks in the 25 by 2025 plan.
“Thirty five percent of the islands’ bananas and plantains production have been affected. That is the initial assessment. More than 100 acres of agricultural commodities including vegetables, roots and tubers, permanent crops and corn production have been taken out of the system. For those of us in larger land and agricultural land space we must understand that 300 or 400 acres of agricultural production in vegetables and root crops and so on, plantains, and bananas have a tremendous effect on the economy and livelihood of these countries,” he informed.
Jamaica also suffered extensive damage in agricultural areas. “This damage is as I said, just as in the other countries where current production has been taken out of the system and in most of the cases here it is the rural farmers and rural communities that have suffered the most and the investment required to bring back these communities into productive capacity is going to be enormous. So, whilst the initial effort is around current needs, we have this immediate medium and long-term situation as a result of Beryl on countries that have been affected,” he noted.
The Caricom Chair said that he has already begun having discussions on picking up the pieces and setting plans in motion to rebuild the agricultural sector of the countries hit.
“There are some thoughts and some initial ideas that I have already shared with some colleagues and also the chair of the ministerial task force of agriculture, to see how we can quickly mobilise the necessary stakeholders and resources, to address this tremendous setback [to] our 25 by 2025 action plan… by Beryl,” he said.
He added, “I am also deeply concerned and will be making the necessary calls in relation to FAO, IICA and other institutions coming in from a very early stage to help our farmers and work with the region. Because for sure there are some changes in the methodology and changes in the approach for food production that we will have to take into consideration in this build-back phase.
“I’ve actually asked the chair of the ministerial task force to convene a strategic meeting… to include IICA, the Brazilian government… to look at how we are going to rebuild, what technology is available, to look at some quick yielding varieties that we can introduce so that we can get some earning back as quickly as possible to the farmers. For example, the hybrid mangoes that will still give you the quality mangoes with high yield and production, but the trees are smaller and less susceptible to full-blown impacts,” he said.
“The way in which we have to rebuild is to keep resilience and sustainability and I think the use of hydroponics and shade house immediately will be critical because this can accelerate how much leafy vegetables and crops like that we can put back on the market very quickly, which will give the farmers shorter timelines in terms of getting back some resources and also will help in addressing immediate food and nutritional needs,” he added.
Coastal infrastructure and properties also sustained damage from the storm surge and high winds. Ali said that this is also a concern because the coastal infrastructure is key for agriculture and the development of the agricultural sector and support to farmers in the region.
“I am very concerned also that this is only the beginning of this hurricane season and we have already seen such a major setback… in the totality of the economies of these countries. But I am speaking specifically on the area I have responsibility for, that is agriculture because I know the tremendous improvement, tremendous investment and the tremendous goodwill that this sector has received from the government and farmers. As a result of activism and the strong work by different government ministries and farmers, there has been a renewed vigour in increasing the agricultural output in all of these islands,” he said.
