(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) If all goes well, Alien Invasive Species (IAS) such as the Hibiscus Mealybug which destroyed, among others, okra crops in some CARICOM Member States could well be a thing of the past in the Caribbean. This could be the case as the Caribbean has mapped a policy framework for tackling IAS with the development of the Caribbean Regional Invasive Species Intervention Strategy (CRISIS) and the establishment of the Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency (CAHFSA)
The former is a framework for enhanced cooperation and effective actions to safeguard agriculture, fisheries, human health and natural resources against the threats posed by IAS, while the latter is an agency- an institutional framework for facilitating enhanced cooperation and effective actions to develop and strengthen national and regional agricultural (animal and plant health) and food safety systems in the context of trade facilitation.
News of this was delivered by Ms Margaret Kalloo, of the CARICOM Secretariat, in a presentation at the 42nd annual general meeting of the Caribbean Food Crops Society (CFCS), in which she focused on CAHSFA. She described CAHSFA as being of paramount importance to the Region, given that the proposed agency with its broad mandate must play an integral role in strengthening National Agricultural Health and Food Safety Systems (NAHFS), and must develop and coordinate the regional agricultural health and food safety policies, programmes and projects.
She stressed that not withstanding its pivotal role in safeguarding against the entry of invasive species into the Region, CAHFSA had some challenges. These included funding, legislative and regulatory. She however suggested that at least one – legislative – was being dealt with within the Community structure at the level of the Legal Affairs Committee (LAC).
“The legal framework for the establishment of CAHFSA does not include provisions for enforcement authority. This may appear as a major hurdle to execution of an IAS strategy but given the process of decision making and the provisions of the Treaty and (CAHFSA) for conflict resolution and other persuasive mechanisms for resolution within the Community this may not necessarily be the critical constraint to execution,” Ms Kalloo said.
