(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The forum on agribusiness was one step towards identifying the demands of the market and setting the challenge for producers to meet those demands, officers of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat have said.
Ms. Desiree Field-Ridley, Adviser, Single Market and Sectoral Programmes, and Mr. Sam Lawrence, Adviser, Regional Transformation Programme on Agriculture, indicated that the Public-Private Sector Consultation which opened in Georgetown on Wednesday 27 May 2009, would emphasise the food chain from field to the table.
The outcome of the forum would be activity-oriented and the expectation is a more collaborative milieu in which specific products and commodities and the requisite support and conditions would be identified.
“This is part of a continuum and the next step will ensure that what is identified in this forum is addressed,’ Ms Field-Ridley said.
“The Consultation will emphasise the food chain from the field to the table. It is going to give the buyers at one end an opportunity to emphasise what it is that the market is demanding…, therefore setting the challenge for the producer to meet those challenges. There is also going to be an indication as to what are the environmental conditions…, the various issues that need to be addressed such as policy and support in infrastructure to ensure that the producer can meet the market demand,” Mr. Lawrence added.
The two-day forum’s participation comes from a wide cross-section of stakeholders in the agribusiness sector including policy-makers, farmers, small and medium enterprises, international development partners, and regional and international organizations. A Buyer-Seller Dialogue dominated the first day of the Consultation.
According to Ms. Field-Ridley, the Consultation was being held at a time when there was increasing emphasis on food nutrition and food security.
In addition to bringing together buyers and sellers so that each knows what the other requires, Ms Field-Ridley said that the public sector would be able to assess the needs with regard to the environment in which the buyers and sellers operated, while the development partners would have an appreciation of the kinds of support needed by the agribusiness ventures.
In the face of reduced capacity by countries to produce and feed their peoples, coupled with the necessity to reduce the Region’s high food import bill, there was now recognition that “we need to eat what we grow and grow what we eat”, Mr. Lawrence pointed out.
He added that there was evidence of a number of new players in the agribusiness sector who would need to know what actions they needed to take to put themselves in a viable position.
“The Consultation will provide that information,” he said.
