Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Head of State with Lead Responsibility for Agriculture, His Excellency, President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana, today told CARICOM Ministers of Agriculture meeting in Georgetown that the level of political commitment to agriculture in the Region must be raised. He said that agriculture is not often carefully examined and its role in the Region had to be constantly reiterated.
The President made the remarks at the opening of the one-day 21st Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) at the CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown.
“Too often in our region I hear that agriculture has no role to play and that services would be the thing of the future. I may not disagree with that view that services will play an important role in the future of those countries, but we can develop services, without disinvesting in agriculture, especially if we understand the role of agriculture in an economy, and sometimes I feel in our countries and among our policy makers the role of agriculture is not carefully examined. We need to constant remind the region about the importance of agriculture,” President Jagdeo said.
He pointed out that the agriculture sector was critical to food security, poverty alleviation, rural development, and export earnings, and also had an important supportive role in the services sector.
He also stressed that the Region needed to situate its efforts within the context of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) and needed to fill that single economic space with the appropriate agricultural strategies and projects.
President Jagdeo’s views coincided with those of Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Dr. Jacques Diouf and CARICOM Deputy Secretary General, Her Excellency Ambassador Lolita Applewhaite, that the Region should not lose momentum in promoting the agriculture sector to take into account the consequences of globalization.
The Focus of the Meeting was Strengthening Agriculture for Sustainable Growth and Development in the Caribbean Community, also known as The Jagdeo Initiative.
