Secretary General of CARICOM Erwin LaRoque has indicated his belief that the theme for this year’s Caribbean Week of Agriculture is relevant as the region moves towards greater integration through the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
The CWA meetings being staged in Dominica this week were centered on “Food and Nutrition Security in a Changing Climate: The Nature Island Experience” and LaRoque stated that one of the biggest challenges faced throughout the region is mounting food prices and the heavy dependence upon foreign food imports, even in the current fiscal climate.
“The region’s food import bill currently hovers around US $4 billion, with processed products accounting for most of that amount. Two months ago, global food prices were 26 percent higher than the corresponding period a year ago. The challenge facing us in addressing the high food import bill and increasing food prices is the creation of sustainable food production systems,” he pointed out.
He said that the CSME is still the best response to the current global financial crisis and that agriculture continues to play a major role in to the success and continued development of that enterprise.
“This CWA not only highlights the significance of agriculture to the development of our communities, but provides an opportune moment for us to demonstrate that we are serious about achieving food and nutrition security and ensuring cost efficient production in the sector,” LaRoque said.
He continued, “We have to maintain a supply of healthy food at affordable prices, even as there is mounting pressure on nearly every element affecting the process. We must utilize more local inputs, feeds and fertilizers and we must improve the productivity of land, labour and capital. We therefore have to be more proactive than reactive.”
He mentioned that the prevalence of Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases in the region can be reduced by changing the content and nutrition of the region’s diets, pointing to the fact that a few countries have already initiated programs aimed at reducing their food imports, including a programme in Jamaica that could see 45 percent of imported foods being replaced with local products.
what up
Caricom;
food security is relative to people’s security. Once food security is threathened that means the people of the region are threathened.
Are we solving our problems, oblivious of our past????
It is the same Caribbean people who provided free labour when we came here to work on cane, tobacco,etc plantations for the western societies.
500 years of unpaid labour that is not yet addressed.
How can we move as a people when we choose to blind ourselves to the realities of the past and what is has brought us to.
we must dare to stand on the side of truth, rights and justice.
the Caribbean people are owed a debt and we the everyday people entrust officials like you and related institutions that should articulate our situation to the powers that be because they are the ones who directly benefitted from five hundred years of free labour to develop their empire.
While your institutions are well placed to be around the negotiation tables with those western powers to receive endorsements for this and that projects, we hope you muster enough faith in yourself and the cause of the dispossessed peoples of the Caribbean who were brought to this crisis because instead of labouring and save for the generations to come, our forefathers laboured to enrich the plantation owners who were then able to leave a legacy for their people while the slaves had nothing to leave for their coming generations …..me, you and all the unemployeds who are grappling to keep their heads up while our pockets are closed(empty)….our forefathers had nothing to leave for us….that’s why poverty manifests in aids, prostitution, food insecurity, gang warfare and all that can be related to the fact that our forefathers were not compensated for 500 years of free labour given to slave owners who were duly compensated when slavery was abolished.
It would seem that some of us who came from the fields are trained to address an adjusted slave system where we skirt around the real reasons why our people are still so insecure.Representation of the masses is gravely lacking.
Our proposal to you, on behalf of those of us who were not left a legacy from the labour of our forefathers:
We need a reparation/repatriation department to address the crisis of poverty in the Caribbean stemming from 500 hundred years of unpaid labour that has dislocated generations of the slaves.
Latelt, some caricom countries have addressed the UN on this issue and we are waiting for a follow up from Caricom to take this call seriously.
SET UP A REPARATIONS COMMITTEE IN CARICOM TO MAKE REAL OUR EFFORTS AT SECURING OUR PEOPLE WHO WERE DISPLACED(THE kALINAGO PEOPLE) AND THE AFRICAN PEOPLE WHO DEVELOPED THE WEST AND ARE NOT YET COMPENSATED.
REPARATIONS TO REPAIR AND REPAY
REPATRIATION FOR THOSE WHO HAVE A DESIRE TO RETURN TO AFRICA…
We will continue to wish Caricom the very best.We appreciate all the genuine effort to develop us and bring our children on the same level as european and white american children.
THANK YOU
Eat what you grow, grow what you eat… Simple.
Great!! But what about education, health care, sports and tansportation. Do we manufacture garden forks, cutlasses, hoes, spades, fertilizer and pesticide? How do we keep up with the cost of these things?
…at any price?? Our farmers are exempt from income tax, they receive subsidised inputs, duty-free vehicles and yet they do not make a lot of money. Are we obliged to pay higfh prices just so they can make a living? Who is helping me to survive?
How can the island compete when a few days ago I saw a 10 lb. bag of carrots at the grocery for $1.69?
Very good point! Our government benefits from imports too through high import duties. Yet, and in spite of this, imported foods retail at a lower price than locally grown ones. You can even buy imported water at a lower price than the ones produced here. Explain that to me! Nobody outside Dominica is obliged to buy our produce and why should they when we are expensive an inconsistent?
And of course it just had to be Jen Paix Bouche…lol…..