The fact that this year’s Caribbean Week of Agriculture, which is being held from October 7-11 is being staged a mere handful of weeks after Hurricane Beryl had devastated the agriculture sector in several countries in the region, is surely the issue that ought to be at the core of the contemplations and outcomes derived from this event.
The organizers of the programme for the CWA event, one assumes, are altogether aware of the fact that any programme that neglects to tackle, front and centre, Beryl’s rampage and what we can do to spare ourselves at least some of the consequences of another of the region’s annual weather upheavals is unlikely to find favour with astute analysts. Even if for the sake of those territories that bore the brunt of Beryl’s rampage the outcomes of the discourses that will form part of the CWA programme must provide them with some measure of assurance that next time around there will be more robust mechanisms in place to mitigate the damage.
Customarily, CWA programmes focus on product displays which, of course, are altogether acceptable, though these should not distract from the real issues.
Contextually, it is important that this year’s event be used to contemplate measures that will mitigate the effects of these annual devastating hurricanes by seeking to fashion serious discourses with the developed world on matters pertaining to climate change and the various ways in which it impacts of weather patterns in the region. Such discourses which should involve participation from developed countries as well as multilateral financial institutions need to represent some sort of starting point for the actualization of climate-related initiatives that help to protect poor countries that customarily bear the brunt of events like Beryl and her aftermath.
Here the point should be made that it is up to those worst-affected countries to sound their voices on issues like climate change and the way it affects the Caribbean. CWA 2024 requires a decisions-oriented agenda that focuses on having the ‘big time’ climate transgressors in the dock of accountability for the damage inflicted.
Here it is a matter of assigning the Caribbean Week of Agriculture new assignments, which, while not neglecting the customary parading of the region’s agricultural produce, focusses on serious discourses that secure the participation of financing institutions like the World Bank, the IMF and the IDB and which aims unerringly at two issues, first embracing measures that will significantly mitigate climate degradation and secondly, entering into concrete agreements that focus on the implementation of those mitigation measures.
Accordingly, even as the customary items on the CWA programme proceed this year, the serious discourses that involve state officials, climatologists, representatives of international organizations and high officials of government from developed countries must engage here in the region on climate mitigation as a mechanism for ensuring that eventually, normal life for parts of the Caribbean is not degraded permanently.
There are those who would argue, of course, that the slow pace of change is attributable to the dilatoriness of Caribbean governments, a charge that cannot be denied when account is taken of the situation on the ground. The point about the junction at which we have now arrived – given the devastation inflicted on parts of the region by Beryl is that the proverbial clock is ticking and that it is now for the region to engage in what we in the Caribbean often describe as a rough and tumble with the world’s foremost climate offenders since, in effect, we are fighting for the survival of the region, no less.