Food Production, Food Security in focus as CARICOM Special Ministerial Task Force holds first Meeting

A CARICOM Special Ministerial Task Force to focus on maximising the Region’s food production and food security, held its first meeting on 7 April 2021.

The task force, to which Heads of Government agreed at their intersessional meeting in February, falls under the chairmanship of Agriculture Minister of Guyana, the Hon, Zulfikar Mustapha. Guyana holds responsibility for agriculture in the CARICOM Quasi Cabinet.

During remarks at the beginning of the meeting, Minister Mustapha said the objective of the task force was to guide the regional position towards the transformation of the agri-food system allowing for a significantly more resilient, wealth-generating, and food secure Region.

“Food system transformation is at the core of our aspirations and mandate. Therefore, our activities over the next years would be geared towards this goal. Specifically, the CARICOM Agri-Food System Strategy seeks to frontally address the complete removal of all technical barriers to trade, development of a CARICOM Cross Border Agri-Food Investment Strategy to support production corridors, accelerating the pace of finalising and adopting of the CARICOM Investment Code, completion of the reform of the CET suspension and rule of origin regimes to afford protection to regional enterprises and to support the competitiveness of regional forms, implementation of E-Agriculture Strategy, development of measures to promote de-risking of the sector, improvement of transport and logistics and, investment in production, research and development,” he said.

To this end, the Minister said, an Implementation Plan with 36 broad policy areas has been articulated. Select priority sectors such as poultry, corn/soya bean, rice, beef pork, mutton, coconut, niche vegetables, fruits, and fruit juices, ginger turmeric have also been identified to advance the commercialisation agenda of the regional food system.

During the meeting, the Task Force reviewed, amended, and accepted the Terms of Reference (TOR), which a team of technical officers from the CARICOM Secretariat developed. The TOR outlines the objectives, purpose, membership, and governance of the task force.

In addition to Guyana, there were representatives of nine other Member States at the Special Ministerial Task Force Meeting. They are: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, The Bahamas, Dominica, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Also attending the meeting were a team from the CARICOM Secretariat led by Mr. Joseph Cox, Assistant Secretary-General, Trade and Economic Integration; and regional institutions: Caribbean Private Sector Organisation (CPSO), Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency (CAHFSA), and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

During his presentation, Mr. Shaun Baugh, Programme Manager, Agricultural and Agro-Industrial Development, CARICOM Secretariat, discussed the implementation plan for the strategy. He said that the objective of the plan was to commercialise the Regional agri-food industry, with actual commencement of private sector production activities in priority sectors identified, within a three-year window. He also discussed several broad policy measures and reforms required to support the commercialisation of the Region’s Agri-food System.

Source: CARICOM TODAY