By: Staff Writer
October 13, 2023.
More than half of the English speaking Caribbean suffers from severe food insecurity, says the executive director of the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI)
Ansari Hosein, said at the Caribbean Week of Agriculture, 2023 that there is an urgent need for the Caribbean to reduce its $6bn food import bill by 25 percent within the next two years. In addition, he noted that food price increases ranged from 66.7 percent to 4.2 percent in the region for 2023 already, further underscoring the need to act swiftly on securing food for the region.
Mr Hosein added: “The lingering impacts of the fallout from the COVID 19 pandemic and of course, the Russia Ukraine conflict with stuff going on, in particular, coupled with our vulnerability to climate related hazards have negatively impacted the sector’s contribution to food and nutrition security, wealth creation and employment.”
With the abundance of natural resources coupled with favourable weather year round it is “unacceptable” that a region with just over 16m people can be so food insecure along with having a high rate of non-communicable diseases. “The burden of these NCD’s, as we call it, is not only inextricably linked to the food we eat, but has also been responsible for hindering our progress towards achieving sustainable development and this is why we need to support and advance the 25 by 2025 agenda to produce our own wholesome food,” Mr Hosein noted.
He also said: “This agenda can only be successful. If we adopt a whole of community approach. We need to remove this notion about insularity. Yes, of course, there are some national interests which is understandable, but we must keep an eye on our focus on the macro regional interests.”
The region has been making attempts to come together on agricultural interests, led by the President of Guyana, Dr Irfaan Ali, who is leading CARICOM’s drive to reduce its food importation bill by 25 per cent by 2025 and Guyana’s thrust to become a global leader in food production.
The region must now continually stand behind the 25 by 2025 agenda to make even a minor dent in the level of food insecurity and cut into the high food import bill in the region.
Mr Hosein also said: “The old saying we have united we stand, divided we fall. Vision 25 by 2025, That plan recognizes investment in research and development as a critical area of focus and we urge Member States, both the public and the private sectors to bear this in mind.
Continuous R&D is a necessity to increase production and productivity. It is not something to be seen as ‘by the way,’ and if anyone is thinking about it, this is not the time to be withholding funding for R&D. As a matter of fact, now is the time for increasing it.”