Food Production Targets May Need To Be Amended
(Barbados Government Information Service Press Release) Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley believes this region may now need to amend its target and generate at least 25 per cent of its food production by 2023.
Ms. Mottley expressed this view (on Friday) while virtually addressing the Regional Food Systems Dialogue. She said the focus must be on how to put food on people’s table and ensure there was a stockpile of food, in light of the crises confronting the region.
The Prime Minister told her audience: “Our goal of 25 [per cent] by 2025 probably needs urgent modification. I trust and pray that our region will accept that we need to expedite the process of producing as much food regionally as we can, and that we need to come together, accepting that the true breadbaskets of the region will be Guyana, Suriname and Belize. But that does not remove from the rest of us the obligation of producing as much food as we can.”
His Excellency Dr. Irfaan Ali urged #CARICOMOrg Member States to be aggressive https://t.co/9HbvuA6Ct2 in their suggestions, programmes and plans in addressing #foodsecurity issues within the Region. #Foodsystems #SystemsDialogue
— Caribbean Community (CARICOM) (@CARICOMorg) May 31, 2021
However, she noted that there were some difficulties that had to be confronted, and highlighted access to cheaper food from outside the region as the foremost issue.
“The question as to how we treat to the whole issue of food security, allowing us to anchor our domestic policies and our trade policies, becomes absolutely critical. We cannot afford to only have the need to grow food when there is a crisis. Our farmers need certainty to be able to produce food year round.
Read more at: Barbados Government Information Service
Source: CARICOM TODAY