ST.JOHN, Antigua- In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its lingering effects on the Caribbean region, nine heads of government – including Prime Minister Gaston Browne – met in Guyana in May 2022 and agreed to work towards a 25% reduction in food imports across CARICOM by the year 2025.
On Nov. 23, 2023, the European Union (EU) agreed to provide €19 million “to enhance the resilience and sustainability of food systems in the Caribbean, promoting food and nutrition security, particularly for groups in vulnerable situations.”
Accordingly, the EU-CARIFORUM Food Security Programme was launched,
Under this programme, the EU and CARIFORUM were to work with their respective national partners towards achieving a sustainable solution to food and nutrition security in the Caribbean.
The programme was also intended to advance CARICOM’s joint commitment to reduce the food import bill by 25% by 2025, among other objectives.
To achieve these ends, the EU would collaborate with several financial, development and trade institutions and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).They would work with the region’s Ministerial Task Force on Food Production and Food Security.
The United Progressive Party (UPP) notes, with great concern, that the third anniversary of – and deadline for – the 25% reduction is a mere eight months away.
However, in the more than two years since the agreement, Antigua and Barbuda has made no visible or verifiable progress in reducing the volume of food imported here.
Rather, despite the Browne Administration’s appointment of five Ministers of Agriculture in the last 10 years – Arthur Nibbs, Dean Jonas, Samantha Marshall, Chet Greene, and Anthony Smith, Jr. – the sector has continued to decline, creating an even greater dependence on food imports.
Despite the CARICOM agreement and the support of the EU, farmers have seen no significant improvement in the provision of water or agricultural inputs; the repair of feeder roads to their allotments; or mechanical assistance in the form of more tractors, tillers, and irrigation equipment.
Further, the benefit of technical assistance appears to have been concentrated in a few private farms that ate closely connected to Cabinet Members.
Despite the quiet panic of households – particularly single mothers and pensioners – whose budgets cannot stretch to accommodate the steadily rising cost of imported food, and a healthcare system burdened by diseases like obesity, hypertension, and diabetes – all food-related – the Browne Administration continues to make no discernible effort to honour the CARICOM agreement.
The UPP is therefore calling on current Agriculture Minister Smith to come to the Nation and explain the Administration’s failure to advance the “25-25” goal and what it plans to do, in the next eight months, to rectify and advance that agenda.
Antigua and Barbuda’s crop farmers, livestock farmers, fisher folk and burdened consumers want to know.
It cannot be right for the Government to boast about the increase in revenues at the Port without concern for the implications on those who struggle to afford a healthy meal composed almost entirely of food imports.
“Let us hear from you, Minister Smith,” The UPP said. (WiredJA)
