(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Greetings to all of you gathered here this afternoon in the beautiful Nature Island of the Caribbean – Dominica!
We are honoured in the Commonwealth of Dominica, to be hosting the 10th Caribbean Week of Agriculture and the many very important discussions and fora under the auspices of our august regional agencies and international organisations.
I have no doubt that at the end of the week’s activities including your many discussions and deliberations – considering the caliber of academics, researchers, farmers, development partners, NGOS and eminent politicians – we will adopt concrete resolutions that will address the new challenges and new opportunities facing regional agriculture.
This all-important week which brings together leaders in agricultural development and decision-makers at the highest level, from the Region and wider international community – is at an opportune time. A time when the Region is at the cross-roads of development planning
Firstly, from continued discussion from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, stark warning indicates that the outlook of the global economy continues to be uncertain.
The surge in food prices is the biggest threat to the world’s poor, pushing 44 million people into poverty over the past year. The world is risking losing a generation due to the impact of food prices on the world’s poor.
These rising food prices, spurred continually by high energy prices continue to present very clear and present challenges to our collective agricultural sector and ultimately regional food and nutrition security.
But these are not the only challenges to food security and overall agricultural development. It is clear that while the world economy grew exponentially during the past 50 years, designing appropriate poverty alleviation tools remains a challenge.
While agriculture is the main sector to help foster change, reduce rural poverty and provide a platform for transformation at the rural level, it remains challenged by many serious circumstances.
Despite its ability to transform our economies, it is buffeted by recurring problems.
A lack of transformation of our economies will continue to widen the gap between rich and poor as well as increasing the number of persons having no access to safe and nutritious food.
All of these will happen despite the world’s ability to produce surplus food. Food production in developed countries continues to further threaten production in the south because of an unfair advantage to export food at competitive prices.
While the world produces surplus food, insecurity continues to plague areas of the Region vulnerable to this phenomenon. This terrible scourge is of unprecedented scale.
Food and nutrition insecurity continue when the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation.
We have seen where food shortages and where rising food prices have caused untold hardships in parts of Africa and other areas.
Alleviating poverty and reducing food insecurity by increasing the productive capacity of our countries in the region is one of the most effective ways of mitigating the effects of high global food prices, and collectively, we must strive to do just that.
We are not alone in this: Africa as a whole has more than 40% of its arable land uncultivated, and a recent Harvard study shows that the continent could increase food production by at least 1.5% a year.
So, we all have a lot of work to do.
Our regional governments have heeded the call. Our development partners have paid attention to this urgent need. The International Community has seen the light and understood the development requirements of our vulnerable economies.
The way forward should be for continued strategic partnerships and whatever happens here, this week, must bear testimony to our strong resolve to solve our problems in agriculture.
Decidedly, the Region’s agriculture must be re-positioned through innovation and best business know-how and be re-directed to give results as required.
At the forefront of the discussion on challenges that are faced by the regional agricultural sector are innovation, science, and technology transfer. The Region’s agriculture must continue to seek efficiency and productivity if it has to continue to be the main engine of change.
It is widely known in development literature, that agriculture plays a crucial role in economic development, through employment creation especially in the rural space, poverty reduction, income generation, food and nutrition security, equity and ultimately, growth.
Importantly, we must highlight some of those challenges faced by the agricultural sector in the Region. These are familiar to us all but I seek your indulgence to outline them again.
They are:
The continuing global economic crisis and continued high cost of energy
Environmental degradation and increasing populations
HIV, AIDS and Non-Communicable Diseases and their effects on the productive sector especially the Region’s labour force
Increased competition from non-regional markets
The debilitating effects of climate change
High food prices
Ever changing standards including those associated with production and trade in global commodities
Changing cultures as seen by desire for imported goods
The invasion of foreign exotic species and trans-boundary zoonotic diseases
These are of global dimension but others are more localized. Some are common yet others are unique. Interestingly, one common thread as a challenge is the perception of agriculture as something to be ashamed of. Agriculture to many is not hype!
This common perception continues to dampen our actions on improving our future food security outlook.
We need to take agriculture out of the closet and position it on the mantel to be showcased and valued. This point seems to be of particular interest to many of us. The general thinking is that, other sectors are forerunners in our development agenda.
But do we seriously look at the benefits of agriculture and how incomes from agriculture are spread in the economy?
Rural poverty and food and nutrition insecurity
Despite massive progress over the past two decades in reducing poverty in some parts of the world – notably East Asia – there are still about 1.4 billion people living on less than US$1.25 a day, and close to 1 billion people suffering from hunger.
At least 70 per cent of the world’s very poor people are rural, and a large proportion of the poor and hungry are children and young people. Sub-Saharan Africa, with the highest incidence of rural poverty, is the Region’s worst affected by poverty and hunger.
The regional situation may not be as dismal but we cannot take for granted the need to modernize the sector.
Agriculture plays a vital role in most countries, and typically it is the poorest households that rely most on farming and agricultural labour.
With a growing dependence on food imports and severe water scarcity, the Region is facing daunting challenges, not least the demand to develop the right policies and new approaches to rural development that would help the agricultural sector become an effective driver in the eradication of food insecurity.
Regional governments have been channeling more resources into agriculture, pursuing the goal of increasing public investment in agriculture.
In some Member States, improving access to higher yielding seeds and fertilizers, improving soil fertility, strengthening technical training and boosting access to credit have been hallmarks. As a result, smallholder farmers have become more productive and more prosperous.
Investing in regional agriculture: Key to global food security in the 21st century
Global population will continue to grow over the coming decades, and it will grow fastest in cities. The Region is no exception. To feed the world’s estimated 9 billion people in 2050; agricultural production will have to rise by 70 per cent. Much of that increase will need to come from developing countries.
Hence, raising regional agricultural production and output are critical to our food security in the coming decades.
Hence too, profound changes in agricultural markets are giving rise to new and promising opportunities for smallholder farmers in developing countries. As a result, our farmers will have more incentives to boost their productivity.
But helping them get access to these markets – and increasing their negotiating power in those markets – is key. So is providing farmers with support to make their farming systems more productive, more sustainable and more resilient.
Using resources efficiently and adapting to the effects of climatic change and other shocks will be the hallmarks of smart farming in the coming decades.
On this note of climatic change, the need for risk mitigation and insurance in helping the Region’s farmers to bounce back quickly from more frequently occurring vulnerabilities must be a priority.
While young people are a huge potential resource, many are migrating to cities in search of opportunities, leaving behind an increasingly ageing population and abandoned lands.
It is vital – and ultimately beneficial for everyone – to turn this trend around. Reality will quickly dim the bright lights of the city for this generation. But if they stay on the farm, these upcoming farmers will be in the forefront of innovative, knowledge intensive and hence a productive agriculture.
Substantial and sustained investments focused on young farmers are essential to harness their energies and ambitions.
Clearly, it is time to look at poor smallholder farmers in a completely new way – not as charity cases but as people whose innovation, dynamism and hard work will bring prosperity to their communities and greater food and nutrition security to the Region for years to come.
New and emerging thinking should point to two areas highlighting where particular attention and investment are needed.
These are:
Rural areas must become a place where people want to live and do business: there is need to invest in infrastructure, more utilities and services and improve governance.
Rural people need the skills to manage the multiple risks they face, which often prevent them from taking advantage of economic opportunities: the rural environment must be made less risky, and people must be helped to better manage risk, both in their agricultural production systems and in their broader lives.
Agricultural markets for increased incomes
Well functioning agricultural markets are essential for agricultural development. Most farming units are connected with informal markets, as sellers of produce, buyers of food, or both. However, the extent to which they are involved varies considerably.
Markets are often uncertain, risky and conducted on insecure or unfavorable terms. Investments in market-oriented crops in the absence of reliable and sustained markets are sometimes a dead end.
By contrast, access to remunerative and reliable produce markets can enable farming households to commercialise their production systems and increase their farm incomes.
The rewards, costs and risks of doing so are all context and value chain-specific, and they vary for different producers. However, it is generally a challenge for poor rural people to seize rewarding opportunities in produce markets and to cope well with the attached risks.
Agricultural produce markets have undergone profound transformation in the past two or three decades, in terms of the scale and nature of demand, and the organization of supply or market governance.
In most of the Region, demand for agricultural products, particularly high-value ones, is increasing rapidly, with the demand driven by the growing numbers and increased incomes of consumers in urban areas and high end tourist entities.
The rapid emergence of supermarkets is spurring the establishment of modern value chains, particularly for high-value foodstuffs. These are typically better organized, coordinated, and have higher standards than traditional markets, though the latter continue to play an important role in national food supply systems in most countries.
Restructured or modern markets and value chains offer a new environment for smallholders, with potentially profitable opportunities set against higher entry costs and risks of marginalization.
But traditional markets can offer an important alternative, and sometimes a fall-back option.
Global and regional agricultural markets are also becoming more integrated and concentrated in their structure. The map of global trade in agriculture has been changing, with some fast-rising economies playing a growing role.
Many export markets tend to exclude small-scale suppliers, a process that has intensified with the imposition of higher product and process standards by northern retailers.
But some global value chains offer important opportunities for smallholder suppliers – and for other rural people working in agro-processing or in ancillary industries.
Smallholders need to be able to identify the costs and benefits of participating in modern, traditional, domestic and global markets on a case-by-case basis, and to respond accordingly.
Reducing risk and transaction costs along value chains are important for determining whether or not smallholders can engage profitably in modern agricultural markets.
Strengthening their capacity to organize is a key requirement to participating in markets more efficiently and to reducing transaction costs for them and for those that they do business with.
Infrastructure is also important – particularly transportation, and information and communication technology – for reducing costs and uncertainty, and improving production and market information flows.
Contracts can help as they often build trust between farmers and agribusiness. They also facilitate farmers’ access to input credit and other financial services.
The growing importance of a corporate social responsibility agenda within the global food industry provides an increasingly positive context for the establishment of such contracts.
Policymakers, civil society organizations, NGOS and donors can play a key role, working with regional farmers and market intermediaries to help them establish and scale up sustainable market relations.
At the same time, there is a need to look at agricultural value chains not only as a source of opportunities for small farmers, but also as a means of creating demand for labour and services from other rural people.
We should also give attention to policies that create opportunities and reduce risks for rural people as employees and service providers.
Until everyone sees the need for this better agriculture, until our regional institution work smarter and until development partners seek to build a more robust agricultural sector in the Region, food and nutrition insecurity will be common in the region.
This entire week must be spent in charting our common path and purpose to ensure our entire population enjoys safe and nutritious food.
I wish you a successful 10th Caribbean Week of Agriculture; enjoy the Nature Island to your heart’s content.
Have a blessed stay in the Commonwealth Of Dominica!
