There are strong indications among some countries in the Caribbean that the highly-touted regional objective of reducing extra regional food imports by 25% by 2025 is not anywhere close to being achievable in the wake of the setback in sections of the region’s agricultural sector deriving from Hurricane Beryl and the damage it wreaked in several CARICOM territories.
While, as a region, the Community itself has made no comment on the achievability or otherwise of the objective, prior to the devastation wreaked by Beryl, it appears that some CARICOM member countries may now be hedging their bets on the likelihood that 25×2025 will not become a reality given the direct, and in some instances, devastating damages that have been done to the sector in some Caribbean countries that were expected to ‘chip in’ to help realize the 25×2025 objective. However, once Hurricane Beryl had made its devastating intervention, it is unlikely that the region could reach what even prior to the hurricane was felt to be a ‘big ask.’
The indication that the region may now give up its 25×2025 mission was articulated by Permanent Secretary in Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Denny Dipchansingh, during a recent interview with The Guardian. If this assertion turns out to be true, it would mean that a climate-related phenomenon would have upturned the region’s food security bona fides prior to the timeline that had earlier been estimated. Unveiled in 2022, the 25×2025 projection had been made against the backdrop of what had been projected by global food-related UN entities, including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), as an impending food security crisis.
CARICOM leaders, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali and Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley, had been designated to lead a planned regional food security drive, but calls for a comprehensive update on the initiative have been met with no response. In noting that the Caribbean remained committed to the 25×2025 goal, and Beryl would have been a setback to its realization, the Trinidad and Tobago official is quoted in The Guardian as saying that “as the region rebuilds, the focus is on putting systems in place to ensure resilience within the agricultural industry.”
While the assertion by the Trinidad and Tobago official is not being treated as ‘gospel,’ it is likely that much of what remains of 2025 will be spent on what is an ongoing process of repairing the damage done to some CARICOM countries with prominent agriculture portfolios, including Jamaica, leaving little if any time for a resumption of a focus on the 25×2025 target.
