(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Agriculture officials and Ministers will deliberate on issues relating to initiatives being taken to tackle the soaring food prices, the implementation of a Common Fisheries Regime and European Union Market Access for bananas when they meet from next Monday, 6 October, in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
The meeting of the CARICOM Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) Agriculture will be one of the highlights of Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA), 6-11 October, 2008. That critical sector in CARICOM and the wider Caribbean will be in the spotlight when policy makers, entrepreneurs and media gather in St. Vincent and the Grenadines for a week long focus.
There will be a series of agenda setting and decision meetings as well as an exhibition and a Roundtable that will feature in CWA this year.
The Ministerial meeting of the COTED on 9th October will be preceded by a meeting of agriculture policy officials from CARICOM Member States on 6th October. The packed agenda for both the Officials and Ministers include issues pertaining to the removal of constraints to give effect to the Regional Transformation Programme for Agriculture. The strategy for the removal of constraints is being championed by the Lead CARICOM Head of Government on Agriculture, the President of Guyana H.E Bharrat Jagdeo, and is popularly known as the Jagdeo Initiative.
The constraints identified are: limited financing and inadequate levels of new investments; deficient and uncoordinated risk management measures including praedial larceny; fragmented private sector; inadequate research and development capacity; outdated and inefficient agriculture health and food safety systems; inefficient land and water distribution and management systems; inadequate transportation system, particularly for perishables; weak and inadequate information and intelligence systems; weak markets and lack of linkages; and lack of skilled human resources. CARICOM Member States will report on work done towards the removal of the constraints for the year so far and future steps that maybe required.
A long standing component of the CWA is the agricultural exhibition in which the CARICOM Secretariat is participating this time around. The Secretariat will mount an information booth with specific emphasis on the regional agricultural programme. The occasion will be used to profile the role of agriculture in regional development with emphasis on the importance of the sector to the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), the Regional Transformation Programme for Agriculture and food security.
During CWA 2008, the Agriculture Round Table (A.R.T): “Connecting, Communicating and Cooperating to secure our Caribbean Agri-Culture!” will be staged and brings together entrepreneurs, investors, and media with heads of national, regional and international institutions and agencies and policy planners in an attempt to define a place for agriculture in policy agendas. The ART is sponsored by the Inter American Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) with support from the Caribbean Agricultural Policy Network (CaRAPN), ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agriculture and Regional Cooperation (CTA), CARDI and the CARICOM Secretariat
