(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Dr. Lystra Fletcher-Paul, Country Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FOA) of the United Nations in Guyana, on Monday charged specialists in the agriculture and trade arena to take affirmative action for food and nutrition security in the Region.
She was addressing delegates at the Workshop for the Formulation of a Regional Food and Nutrition Security Policy in the Caribbean, convened under the auspices of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations (UN), the Government of Italy and the European Commission.
“This is our opportunity to change – to stop talking and do something about agriculture, food and nutrition security in the Caribbean.” the FAO Representative said.
The two-day Workshop, which was convened Georgetown, Guyana on Monday 30 November, is part of a second phase in formulating a CARICOM/CARIFORUM Food Security Policy. The first phase of the project titled, Caribbean Regional Food Security Project was funded by the Government of Italy to the tune of USD $4.9 Million. Its objective was to improve the food security in CARICOM/CARIFORUM states by increasing the availability and access to adequate quantities of safe, quality assured food products to food insecure and poor rural communities.
This Phase is also being funded by the Italian Government, this time, to the tune of USD$ 4.07 Million. It seeks to improve the food security in CARICOM/CARIFORUM states through strengthening the food policy environment and the support services to promote efficient and sustainable food systems.
Dr. Fletcher-Paul said that the Workshop was “timely,” as it came on the heels of the recently concluded World Summit on Food Security, 16–18 November at FAO’s Headquarters in Rome, Italy. The Summit, she stated, brought together Heads of Governments of more than 100 countries to discuss the issue of food security and it drew attention to the fact that the number of hungry people in the world had now reached the 1 billion mark.
In the Caribbean, she said that data revealed that as of 2005, the Region had been making good progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goal hunger target of reducing the number of hungry people by 50 percent by 2015.
The FAO representative noted, specifically, that figures showed that the proportion of food insecure in the Region had declined to 23 percent from 2003 to 2005 compared to 26 percent from 1990 to 1992.
Regardless of those encouraging statistics, Dr. Fletcher-Paul said that the comfort should not be taken as the same figures showed that the number of malnourished persons in the Region stood at 7.6 million – the same as in the beginning of the nineties.
“This means that close to one in every four persons in the region is undernourished,” she stated.
Therefore, she stated, “there is need for strong partnership which draws on a wide range of stakeholders, not just in agriculture, but in health, nutrition, education, trade and social policy.”
In this regard, Dr. Fletcher-Paul said that the workshop was “a step in the right direction” as it brought together the main stakeholders in the agricultural sector as well as in trade, nutrition, health and education to discuss measures for achieving food and nutrition security.
More significantly, she stated that it responded to the mandates of the Heads of Government in their call for food security and sustainable development as one of the main pillars of the Regional Transformation Programme for Agriculture, as well as the goals of the Jagdeo Initiative and Community Agricultural Policy under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
Dr. Fletcher-Paul said that the FAO stood willing to assist and work with its partners to make a difference in food and agriculture security.
