Vanishing food production in the Caribbean threatens the region's livelihoods, foreign exchange earnings and arable land, Professor Leonard O'Garro said on Wednesday evening at the Central Bank auditorium, Port-of-Spain.O'Garro, the 2012 Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellence laureate for science and technology, said the main effects of stopping banana production in the Caribbean was the "loss of arable land, (loss of) foreign exchange revenue and (loss of) livelihoods."
Using his birthplace, St Vincent and the Grenadines, as his example of a country that was self-sufficient in food and is now a net food importer, the Caribbean professor said: "All Caribbean Community (Caricom) states are now net food importers to some extent."Caricom is a trade bloc of 14 countries, all English-speaking, with the exceptions of Haiti and Suriname. St Vincent and the Grenadines became a net importer of food in 1997.
As for T&T, O'Garro said primary agriculture accounted for less than one per cent of that country's gross domestic product (GDP).He said T&T consumed more rice, sweet potatoes, citrus and pigeon peas than it produced and therefore had a high import bill for those commodities. By his count, T&T imports about $694 million in food annually.He added Caribbean food production had been plagued by several ills, including a "shortage of labour and low yields."
He said government involvement in the sector had also hurt it and called on the private sector to take the reins of the industry from the region's governments.O'Garro said: "The extent of involvement of the government has led to a dependency. This dependency is manifested in the forms of subsidies, grants and low-interest credits (loans), all of which are making the problem worse."He said approximately 22.7 per cent of all loans in the Caribbean were credits to agriculture.
Bolstering his case for the private sector to lead agri-business in the Caribbean, he said the problem was that agriculture in the Caribbean was "not set up as industries" and pointed out that "where it is set up (as an industry) it does well."He added: "Modern agriculture is a creature of science and technology. Low agricultural productivity is curtailing progress of the Caribbean region. Crop productivity is low because of a lack of investment."
Erosion and degradation of soils were also impacting negatively on agriculture, he said, adding this is "exacerbated by the threats posed by climate change."On the "threats caused by climate change," he said the agricultural sector had a "custodial role" of the environment and an important role to play in the preservation and sustainable use of natural resources.
If it came down to taxes, O'Garro said, he was sure citizens would be prepared to pay a bit more to governments in support of programmes to benefit the environment and the sustainable use of natural resources and climate change adaptation and mitigation.Among his solutions to the problem of "vanishing food production in the Caribbean" was a model based on the private sector taking the lead.
It advocated the linking of access to financing with the arability of the land. It also featured systems for public education, monitoring and evaluation, verification of inputs, risk assessment, risk management and approved natural resource evaluators.
Asked by an attendee which industry he would invest in, from a business perspective, he said:
"If I had the money, I myself might not invest it in agriculture because it is very risky," but later added if he was from T&T, he would pick the cocoa industry, specifically the world-renowned "trinitaria cocoa."He said the local cocoa was "a tremendous asset."