(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Ministers of Agriculture from CARICOM Member States meeting in Guyana on Friday were challenged to let Agriculture take the lead in regional development efforts. This the Ministers heard from CARICOM Secretary-General H. E Edwin Carrington in his address at the opening of the 32nd Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) on Agriculture.
The Secretary-General recalled that CARICOM Heads of Government at their Thirtieth Regular Meeting in Guyana, this July laid out in the Liliendaal Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security, the path which the sector should follow.
He also recalled that the agriculture had always been a key item on the Regional agenda with a number of initiatives pursued along the way with a view to strengthening regional agriculture.
“However, we have not yet been able to effectively transform the ideas and plans contained in the myriad documents into an acceptable reality. That is the task that continues to face us,” said the Secretary-General.
He appealed to Ministers to make this meeting of COTED on Agriculture be the turning point in Agricultural development in the Community.
“To that end we must ensure that at the conclusion of this Special Meeting, we would have made critical progress towards the implementation of the priority Regional actions identified in the Liliendaal Declaration. Then that seat for Agriculture at the table of our development efforts will no doubt be at the very head,” he Secretary-General told his audience.
Mr. Carrington drew attention to some more recent agriculture initiatives in the Region that were pursued under the guidance of the Lead Head of Government for Agriculture in CARICOM, His Excellency President Bharrat Jagdeo, and the current Chairman of CARICOM. He pointed to the Agricultural Donor Conference, an Agriculture Investment Forum and most recently an Agri Business Forum.
“These initiatives were all designed, among other things, to promote the agricultural sector and demonstrate its attractiveness as an investment opportunity. They were also in full recognition that agriculture and trade in agriculture among our Member States can be a major driver of the integration process. One can hardly recall a powerful nation whose foundation has not been in its ability to feed itself, irrespective of its other strengths. I am confident that we as a Community have the capacity to do likewise, in meeting our Region’s food and nutrition security needs,” the Secretary-General stated.
Against this background he called for the removal of barriers to trade in the Region as the Region should be regarded as one market.
“We must therefore remove the barriers to trading among ourselves. We must challenge ourselves to develop the necessary protocols that would truly facilitate trade in agriculture products, while taking into account the need to secure plant and animal health and food safety. One must not be at the expense of the other,” said Secretary-General Carrington, noting that the establishment of the Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency (CAHFSA), to be housed in Suriname is on the agenda for the attention of the Ministers.
The CARICOM Secretary-General stressed that throughout the years the Region has had the good fortune to have had the support of International Development Partners to undertake much needed work in the agriculture sector. In this regard he noted that the term for Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation in Agriculture (IICA), Dr. Chilton Brathwaite was coming to an end.
“We at the Secretariat and I am sure, the Member States as well, would wish to convey our sincere thanks and appreciation for the significant support received from Dr. Brathwaite and IICA during his tenure,” said the Secretary-General.
