President of the Supermarket Association of T&T (SATT) Rajiv Diptee is warning of dire consequences like hunger and malnutrition if T&T and the rest of the region do not achieve food security in the short term.
“According to CEO of the Caricom Private Sector Organisation (CPSO) Dr Patrick Antoine, 52 per cent of the people in the Caricom population are food insecure,” he told the Sunday Business Guardian.
“If that organisation is saying that, then this is alarming. People don’t understand the difference between food security, nutrition, food insecurity and vulnerable households.
“They don’t understand these concepts. We want people to see what lifestyle shifts are needed. Even without the monetary access, what lifestyle shifts could lend to the reduction of the food import bill.”
He gave details of the “A Taste of the Caribbean” Caribbean Food and Beverage Event which was held at the Centre of Excellence, Macoya from June 28 to July 1.
He said Caricom has issued a mandate that the region is moving to 25 per cent reduction in the food import bill by the year 2025.
“How do we get there? We get there with projects like this event that we are holding, which has room for discussions and we need to be interactive. When you speak about food security we speak of both domestic and regional food security. I think the countries of the region need to lean on each other to achieve this objective.”
Diptee said the event held last week was conceived as a project of the SATT, the Caribbean Supermarket Association and their official partners for the event, the Caricom Private Sector Organisation.
He said the idea was to create a forum where issues like food security could be discussed.
“Food security has been high on the agenda for the last two to three years and it’s been something that we’ve been concerned about especially looking at the COVID pandemic, the Russian and Ukraine War and we continue to be an import-reliant nation with no control of prices. The event was conceived as an opportunity where it has the potential to be an annual event for the Caribbean and Latin America. That’s the scope of the ambition.”
He said the issue of food security was a complex one and all stakeholders must be included in the conversation.
“There are several dynamics to that conversation—you have to have conversation with consumers to make them aware of the options. How do you do that? You do that by creating a showcase to show them what they can do. That’s the inspiration for the ‘Live Kitchen’ at this event. You want to cook and show people what can be enjoyed and the different cuisines on offer not only in T&T but the Caribbean.
Apart from the kitchen where cooking was done, the event also had different conferences which covered relevant issues that the business community and the nation as a whole face when it comes to food prices, food security and other related topics.
“It is about how we create the different conversations about the different aspects of how you get to food security. Food security has many layers such as energy, food nutrition, it has the sustainable component like climate change and technology.
“We put together a schedule of 10 to 12 conferences that started on Wednesday. We had one on crime and the cost of food as people need to understand how crime impacts the cost of food as the cost of security is very high. There was also an energy-related discussion.
“We also had a discussion on the digital economy as that’s going to impact the sector as it’s how we do business.”
Foreign exchange
Diptee said one way the Government can assist the business community in their goal of helping T&T become food secure is ensuring it receives foreign exchange to do international business.
“This continues to be a problem. Foreign exchange is what we in the business community use to ensure that we are able to buy goods internationally. I must say that we are resilient as a sector. Despite all the doom and gloom during the COVID pandemic, we never had a real food shortage.
“However, the truth is the foreign exchange situation is not improving. So long as we continue in this paradigm of fighting for foreign exchange at some point it will get more difficult. Remember, supermarkets don’t buy or sell internationally, that’s the job of the importers. Do you know that some distributors had to fold up their operations because of a lack of foreign exchange?”
He added that the entire food import bill relies on foreign exchange accessibility.
“At the regional level, the food import bill is US$6 billion annually, while in T&T it’s around US $1 billion. So, if an event like the one we are now holding could help in a $100 million reduction because of the conversations and ideas put forward, then we can move forward.”
