By Kimberly Ramkhalawan
March 4, 2022
CARICOM heads of Government have come up with a plan for the region to reduce its food import bill.
The latest resolution is a follow-up to the Revised Agreement establishing the Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency signed in Grand Anse, Grenada on February 25th 2011. between the Task Force and the CARICOM Private Sector Organisation’s (CPSO) to ultimately reduce regional food importation by 25% by 2025, dubbed the 25 by 25.
Targets have been set and outlined with Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley and Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali at the forefront leading the way as part of the CARICOM’s Quasi Cabinet on Agriculture, Agricultural Diversification and Food Security. Sharing the news arising from the latest resolution, she remarked that ‘food and water were becoming the new oil’ and with the current volume of imports, there was an urgent need to be able to reduce this while at the same time increasing the opportunities for our agricultural sector”.
Coming out of it, Prime Minister Mottley says MAY 19TH to the 21ST has been earmarked for a Regional Investment Forum to be hosted in Georgetown, Guyana with its offer of 25,000 acres of land to facilitate corn and soya production. The forum is hoped to attract investors looking to partner with CARICOM on achieving this farming initiative and to assess what business models are there that can be expanded, while accelerate the process of identifying alternative financing solutions.
She says while the region is a large consumer of chicken as the region imports just over US$200m in poultry a year, Mottley says there was need to become self-sufficient in poultry in the region, while recognizing “we can also seek to position ourselves by 2025 to be self-sufficient in food stock for poultry whilst still having the capacity to export”. She added that if the Caribbean is to expand farming and growing its own feed, it will assist in reducing a big chunk of the import bill, instead, making its own feed marketable for export.
Mottley reiterated that it was not beyond the capacity of the region “to urgently deal with the production of some of the things we are importing, but it requires political will, it requires bringing together the complexity of the issues from crop insurance, access to financing, removal of barriers, to utilizing the technology and access to the land”.
Meanwhile, in the meeting that brought the visit to Belize to a close, Heads of State and Government of the CARICOM met earlier on Thursday for the Central American Integration System commonly called SICA. The meeting sought to strengthen relations in the face of ‘multidimensional challenges’. The meeting saw the adoption of the Joint Declaration of San Pedro, with commitments to strengthen foreign policy consultation; actively collaborate on socio-economic development matters, including tourism, trade and investment; and strengthen cooperation in Climate Change and public health, among other matters.
At the CARICOM-SICA Summit in San Pedro, Belize, CARICOM’s chairman and Prime Minister of Belize, John Antonio Briceño, spoke to the gathering of over 22 member nations about regional integration, saying that the time was now for regional integration with Latin American countries, as the impact Covid-19 has had on the region, made the case for coming together has become stronger.
Briceno remarked that “The last time the heads of the two sub-regions met in Salvador was more than a decade ago. Then, heads made a solid commitment to strengthen corporation and engagement in areas of mutual interest that were integral to our development. The fact is, our efforts have been less than satisfactory, considering the common plight we face and the many opportunities for our collaboration which we missed. This must now change. Clearly much has happened in the world since 2011, the global and regional landscape has changed significantly. Our partnership therefore must be strategic. It must deliver more for the people of our shared neighborhood. As nations, we are clawing our way back from severe economic downturn, occasioned by a devastating COVID-19 pandemic.”
Panama’s Foreign Affairs Minister Erika Mouynes underscored the strengthening of ties, especially with war in the Ukraine, and fears of being cut off from a certain segment of the world. She added that ‘the fact that twenty two countries are coming together cannot be lost on us and the power and message that sends is also extremely important. So, we need to embrace that and understand. If you allow me to just share a reflection with you with what that means and what we do with that power.”
Mouynes said the summit meant two things, ‘one we go back to normality. We go back to seeing ourselves face to face to the meetings, to that necessary discussion you were describing, long and necessary. But, as we go back to this quasi-normality, we need to figure out how we are going to focus our energy, how we are going to focus our attention. Think about it now as a way for survival because there is no margin for error.”
Other S.I.C.A. Representatives included Felix Ulloa, the Vice President of El Salvador, President of Costa Rica, Alvarado Quesada, Eduardo Enrique Reina Garcia and President of Guatemala Alejandro Giammattei, to mention a few.