Defining food security to mean that ‘everyone, everywhere, evermore’ has access to adequate and nutritious food, Former President David Granger questioned whether CARICOM will ever be able to feed itself. Speaking on his regular programme – The Public Interest – he pointed out that CARICOM states still import more than 60 per cent – some more than 80 per cent – of the food they consume, fifty years after the Community was founded.
Mr. Granger recalled that CARICOM’s four founding fathers – Errol Barrow, Forbes Burnham, Michael Manley and Eric Williams – shared a common vision to protect the new states from the post-Independence perils of economic marginalization. They shared a common conviction that, to “fulfil the hopes and aspirations of their peoples for full employment and improved standards of work and living,” regional integration would be an obligation, not an option. Guyana’s Forbes Burnham advised Caribbean officials in August 1967 of the necessity for integration and, heeding that advice, the independent states established CARIFTA in 1968 and CARICOM, which now celebrates its 50th anniversary, in 1973.
The former President explained, however, that integration was more easily conceived than believed than achieved. CARICOM states extend over 2,640,000 km² of sea-space; Georgetown, Guyana is 2,374 km from Kingston, Jamaica. Air and maritime transport is essential to move goods and people. Commerce and communications, however, are the lowest level of maritime trade in any economic community in the world. CARICOM states’ vulnerability to natural disasters and climate change make them the world’s second most hazard-prone region. Environmental hazard can reduce food output easily, restraining the region as a net importer of food.
CARICOM’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – drafted by Caribbean experts twelve years ago – still defines agricultural policy. CAP, sadly, owing to a lack of collective political will, has been neither embraced earnestly nor executed energetically. Indeed, the former President recommended that, for the Region to achieve food security, states should adopt a four-pronged approach.
First, states should develop their infrastructure, improve farm-to-market access and augment transportation infrastructure such as aviation, highways, shipping, sea-freight and refrigeration to reduce farm-to-table losses and wastage. Second, states should increasingly adopt science, technology and research in agricultural development and the production and processing food products. Third, states should commit to operationalizing CARICOM’s Sustainable Agriculture Credit Facility which will need over US$7.5 billion in investments, over the next 18 months until 2025. And, fourth, states should make information more easily accessible to farmers to enable them to explore opportunities and expand production to penetrate beyond local markets.
The former President warned that, while politicians confer, ships continue to discharge containers of foreign food. He noted that the best ambitions and intentions to achieve food security could fail unless the public sector can be convinced, or coerced, to make CAP work. The big question is – as CARICOM celebrates its 50th anniversary – ‘Will we will ever be able to feed ourselves and fulfil our citizens’ food and nutritional needs? 󠄀
