Guyana, Belize reduced hunger by 50 percent in 2010

Guyana is one of two countries (Belize being the other) in the Caribbean to reduce hunger by 50 percent last year, says Lystra Fletcher-Paul, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative.
Fletcher-Paul indicated that Guyana knows what it wants in terms of agriculture in the Caribbean. Though the country has a high food production rate there is an issue of accessibility and this is the case in most hinterland communities where transportation is a challenge.
Other Caribbean countries have become dependent on imported food and the emphasis is not on agriculture like Guyana. Explaining further, Fletcher-Paul stated that Guyana has land space available for agricultural purposes, while other countries like Trinidad and Tobago focus on other industries like petroleum.
The Caribbean Region is confronting an ever increasing food import bill which now stands at US$4B. “Our food prices are rising, agriculture’s contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is declining and most of our young people are not interested in a career in agriculture,” Fletcher-Paul stated.
She noted that FAO and other agencies have been working with Governments to put policies and legislation in place and mobilizing resources to create an enabling environment.
However, Caribbean countries need to have the will to increase their agricultural output. She noted that agriculture needs to be featured in the schools’ timetables as it is necessary to get children involved in agriculture. Utilizing agriculture as a school based learning tool would increase the importance placed in this field.
Fletcher-Paul asserted that Caribbean agriculture will not improve if the farmers do not produce and if the private sector and consumers do not buy local and regional produce.
She alluded to the fact that FAO has been doing its part in supporting CARICOM member states and Caribbean Farmers Network (CaFAN) through a number of initiatives at both the regional and national levels to address some of the challenges.
At the regional level, two main projects relevant to the recent CaFAN/ CARICOM Regional Work (focusing on production and market planning) held in Guyana are: Phase Two of the Italian funded, regional project entitled ‘Promoting CARICOM/CARIFORUM Regional Food Security’ and the European Union funded All ACP Agricultural Commodities Project.
According to Fletcher-Paul, Phase Two of the Food Security Project with a budget of US$4.07M has a policy component and a value chain component. The value chain component seeks to build regional and national capacities in the area of value chains of non-traditional agriculture commodities from production to a range of domestic, regional and export markets.
The policy component has concluded and extremely effective and successful set of interventions and processes, culminating in the approval by COTED Ministers in October 2010 of the Regional Food and Nutrition Security Policy, she stated.
Fletcher-Paul added that, “Not only was the policy hailed as a very important and timely document for the Caribbean region, the project was recognized for introducing a very effective model for policy formulation.
She revealed that the CARICOM Secretariat had already adopted this model in developing an action plan for implementing RFNS Action Plan and also for revising the Community Agricultural Policy.
“Here in Guyana, the project provided assistance for the National Stakeholder Consultation in the development of their Food and Nutrition Strategy and Action Plan, which was approved by cabinet in April this year,” Fletcher-Paul stated.
She posited that the All ACP Agriculture Programme is an interagency initiative being implemented by FAO, the Common Fund for Commodities, the International Trade Centre, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the World Bank, with a budget of 45M Euro.
It was noted that the overall objective of the project is to support income and employment creation in countries where a majority of farmers were formerly dependent on the cultivation and sales of traditional commodities. In the Caribbean, the proposed focus sector is the roots and tubers sector.
She stressed that the project aims at improving grower-buyer linkages and tries to strengthen producer organizations’ capacities to play a more effective role in facilitating market linkages and provide services to its members.
Fletcher-Paul emphasized that under the programme FAO supports CaFAN and four national farmer organizations which includes Guyana Agricultural Producers Association (GAPA) in Guyana. Activities have started in October 2008 and will be completed by the end of 2011.
CaFAN is responsible for regional networking and information exchange on project activities. The body also coordinates the regional training sessions and workshops which are attended by producer organization representatives from most of the CARICOM countries.
Fletcher-Paul emphasized that in Guyana, under the All ACP Agricultural Commodities Project, GAPA, assisted the Kuru Kuru Crop and Livestock Farmer’s Association to develop a business model and strategic action plan to improve the linkages between their farmers and buyers of eddoes.
GAPA has also provided training to farmers in the areas of farmer group organization, modern production technologies, production planning and crop record keeping, improved harvest and post harvest techniques and improved marketing and contract negotiating skills, she stressed.
It was revealed that plans are also afoot for the New Guyana Marketing Corporation (New GMC), to provide training to the group, mainly in the areas of marketing, post harvest handling, quality assurance and control and standards and certification.