Lead­ing re­gion­al agri­cul­ture ex­perts have re­stat­ed their com­mit­ment to con­tin­ue strength­en­ing food safe­ty sys­tems in the Caribbean.

The Caribbean Task Force on Food Safe­ty (CTFS) reaf­firmed its man­date dur­ing its 2025 An­nu­al Meet­ing at the Sir Frank Stock­dale Build­ing at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (The UWI), St Au­gus­tine on June 3 and 4, 2025.

Es­tab­lished by CARI­COM in 2021 as a tech­ni­cal ad­vi­so­ry body un­der the guid­ance of the Caribbean Agri­cul­tur­al Health and Food Safe­ty Agency (CAHF­SA), the CTFS is tasked with har­mo­niz­ing food safe­ty mea­sures across the Caribbean.

To achieve this man­date, the CTFS is ex­pect­ed to work close­ly with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al food safe­ty au­thor­i­ties to iden­ti­fy cur­rent and emerg­ing food risks.

“Once risks are iden­ti­fied, the CTFS shall co­or­di­nate re­sponse and in­ter­ven­tion meth­ods by car­ry­ing out nec­es­sary tests, in­vest­ing in the re­sources need­ed to re­spond to the iden­ti­fied risks and train­ing pro­grammes for stake­hold­ers iden­ti­fied in the re­sponse,” said a state­ment is­sued by The UWI, which is a mem­ber of the CTFS.

Dean of The UWI’s Fac­ul­ty of Food and Agri­cul­ture (FFA), Pro­fes­sor Mark Wud­di­vi­ra, pledged that the in­sti­tu­tion will con­tin­ue to make its re­search, test­ing and hu­man re­sources ca­pa­bil­i­ties avail­able to sup­port the CTFS’ mis­sion.

“We have an MSc in Agri-Food Safe­ty and Qual­i­ty As­sur­ance be­cause we know that if food is not safe, it can­not be nu­tri­tious and it is not food," said Pro­fes­sor Wud­di­vi­ra as he un­der­scored the im­por­tance of the CTFS mis­sion.

The Fac­ul­ty de­scribes their post­grad­u­ate diplo­ma and MSc in Agri-Food Safe­ty and Qual­i­ty As­sur­ance as “pro­grammes pro­vid­ing ed­u­ca­tion, train­ing and re­search in food safe­ty and qual­i­ty to stake­hold­ers in­clu­sive of farm man­agers, food proces­sors, food ser­vice man­agers, nu­tri­tion­ists, reg­u­la­tors, pub­lic health in­spec­tors, pol­i­cy mak­ers, im­porters and ex­porters, who want to up­grade their skills.”

It says grad­u­ates of these pro­grammes are equipped to man­age food safe­ty from farm to ta­ble, un­der­take risk analy­sis and sup­port re­spons­es to food safe­ty risks—in align­ment with the CTFS’s man­date.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the Caribbean Agri­cul­tur­al Health and Food Safe­ty Agency (CAHF­SA), Dr Gavin Pe­ters, re­it­er­at­ed that the CTFS man­date of bol­ster­ing the re­gion's food safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty has been made more ur­gent by re­cent re­gion­al cli­mate-re­lat­ed dis­as­ters, pub­lic health threats like Covid-19 and dis­rup­tions in glob­al sup­ply chains.

“These re­al­i­ties have high­light­ed the in­ter­de­pen­dence be­tween food safe­ty and re­silience and the im­por­tance of em­bed­ding sus­tain­abil­i­ty and con­sumer trust in­to our food sys­tems,” Dr Pe­ters ex­plained. “Re­silient agri-food sys­tems must en­sure the safe­ty of the food we pro­duce, process, trade, and con­sume—in nor­mal times, and in cri­sis.”

Apart from un­der­min­ing pub­lic health, Dr Pe­ters not­ed food­borne ill­ness­es, con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in­ci­dents, and un­safe prac­tices al­so af­fect mar­ket con­fi­dence, food se­cu­ri­ty, and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

The CAHF­SA CEO called on all or­gan­i­sa­tions at the An­nu­al Meet­ing to col­lab­o­rate to strength­en food safe­ty sys­tems through up­dat­ed leg­is­la­tion, en­hanced sur­veil­lance, more thor­ough in­spec­tion, in­creased lab­o­ra­to­ry ca­pac­i­ty, and in­vest­ments in emer­gency re­sponse sys­tems.

Dr Pe­ters al­so re­mind­ed con­sumers that they too had a role to play in pro­tect­ing re­gion­al food safe­ty.

"A re­silient food sys­tem is not on­ly about pro­duc­ers and reg­u­la­tors ... It is al­so about in­formed and em­pow­ered con­sumers,” he point­ed out. “Peo­ple must have the knowl­edge, tools, and con­fi­dence to make safe and healthy food choic­es."

To this end, Dr Pe­ters not­ed that pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion, la­belling trans­paren­cy, trace­abil­i­ty sys­tems and risk com­mu­ni­ca­tion are es­sen­tial com­po­nents of food sys­tem trans­for­ma­tion.

Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, Sen­a­tor Ravi Rati­ram, con­firmed that the pres­ence of re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions at the meet­ing un­der­scored the im­por­tance of a uni­fied ap­proach to ad­dress­ing food safe­ty chal­lenges in the Caribbean.

"From in­put sup­pli­ers to proces­sors to con­sumers, from en­force­ment to ed­u­ca­tion, en­sur­ing the safe­ty of the food we con­sume re­quires a broad coali­tion of stake­hold­ers work­ing to­geth­er,” Min­is­ter Rati­ram said. “It is time we move away from siloed dis­cus­sions and in­stead bring all stake­hold­ers to­geth­er to have one con­ver­sa­tion that is fo­cused, co­or­di­nat­ed and ac­tion ori­en­tat­ed."

Min­is­ter Rati­ram re­mind­ed or­gan­i­sa­tions sup­port­ing the CTFS' work— Caribbean Agri­cul­tur­al Health and Food Safe­ty Agency (CAHF­SA), The UWI and the Min­istry of Health—that “shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and col­lec­tive will build re­silient, sus­tain­able agri-food sys­tems.”

Mean­while, the Sub-Re­gion­al Co­or­di­na­tor of the UN Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion (FAO), Dr Re­na­ta Clarke, ap­plaud­ed the ac­tions of the CTFS as be­ing cru­cial in "fu­ture-proof­ing" re­gion­al food sys­tems.

"Some­thing that I have un­der­lined on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions is the need to 'fu­ture proof' food safe­ty. If we are pro­duc­ing and han­dling foods in new ways. If our en­vi­ron­ments and our food sys­tems are chang­ing, we can­not ex­pect the same old pro­grammes and prac­tices to pro­vide an ac­cept­able lev­el of con­sumer pro­tec­tion," she ex­plained.

Dr Clarke said the CTFS and its mem­bers are re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing de­ci­sion-mak­ers and con­sumers alike are con­scious of the rel­e­vance of food safe­ty in the con­text of the re­gion's broad­er po­lit­i­cal or eco­nom­ic goals.

She added, "The more peo­ple un­der­stand food safe­ty, recog­nise the roles of dif­fer­ent play­ers and the con­se­quences of poor risk man­age­ment,” she point­ed out, “the more each in­di­vid­ual is like­ly to con­struc­tive­ly en­gage to en­sure that food is safe for every­one, every­where.”

“In the Caribbean, you [the CTFS] are the cat­a­lyst for this con­scious­ness," she added.

With strength­en­ing in­tra-re­gion­al trade be­ing a high-lev­el pri­or­i­ty for CARI­COM lead­ers, she said the CTFS stands to get greater buy-in and in­vest­ments in their ac­tiv­i­ties once de­ci­sion-mak­ers and stake­hold­ers un­der­stand that co­he­sive food safe­ty mech­a­nisms across all coun­tries are op­er­a­tional.