(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) At a time when the spotlight on agriculture is shining brighter on a daily basis, a high level official of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat has emphasized that work on the Region’s agriculture agenda was moving full speed ahead.
Assistant Secretary-General for Trade and Economic Integration at the CARICOM Secretariat Ambassador Irwin LaRocque told an audience at an Agriculture Round Table (A.R.T) in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Monday 6 October that the Region remained focused on its agriculture agenda.
He said that the Region’s agriculture agenda was enshrined in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the CARICOM Single Market and Economy. In this regard, Ambassador LaRocque reminded that the goal of the Region’s agriculture policy included, among other things, the “fundamental transformation of the Region’s agriculture sector to a market oriented internationally competitive and environmentally sound production of agriculture products, improved income and employment opportunities and nutrition security, poverty alleviation.”
Ambassador LaRocque informed that the issue of food security had been on the Region’s agenda for some time. He said work in this area had heightened in light of the rise in food prices across the globe in recent times.
Addressing an audience of entrepreneurs, agriculture policymakers, representative of Non-Governmental Organisations, farmers’ groups and media, the Assistant Secretary-General stressed that the Region recognized that there were constraints to development in the agriculture sector. He added too that work was continuing on addressing these constraints.
“We have indeed given focus to what it will take to move agriculture forward. Some work has been done to identify the key binding constraints and we are seeking to remove those constraints so that agriculture can become more competitive and also that we meet our food and nutrition requirements,” Ambassador LaRocque emphasised.
In an interactive session, some audience members queried if individual countries were indeed committed to tackling the challenges in the agriculture sector.
Ambassador LaRocque agreed that there were some real challenges for CARICOM Member States in this process. He however added that the evidence showed that there needed to be improvement in capacity for the agriculture sector, adding that the human resource constraints were real.
The A.R.T is among the activities being held as a part of the Caribbean Week of Agriculture. The event takes place 6-8 October with some issues in focus being the visibility of the Caribbean and Caribbean Agriculture issues on international development agendas; budgets, financing mechanisms, and modes of motivating farming communities to increase outputs; the relevance of international and regional institution ‘platforms for change’ re food prices, feeding ourselves, nutrition, and food aid; ways of better utilisation of civil society and civilian expertise for more effective use of the resources of development agencies and how to move bureaucracies to respond to real needs and not ‘political agendas’.
The partners, for the A.R.T are IICA, CARICOM, Caribbean Agricultural Policy Network (CaRAPN), ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agriculture and Regional Cooperation (CTA) and CARDI.
