To quote the words of Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, “Our people must eat.”
Citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, as well as those of our Caricom neighbours, have been trying to do just that as countries have been afflicted by spiralling food prices due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia/Ukraine war. The latter impacted the supply of wheat globally, along with major food staples, which in turn saw a sharp rise in food prices.
Locally, consumers have been clamouring for relief as they faced increases in the retail cost of flour and its by-products. Other basic food items have also skyrocketed consistently.
Overall, the food security for many nations hangs in the balance.
This is why the Agri Investment Forum Expo II, as well as the food production initiative between Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, could not have come at a better time.
Thursday’s talks and agreement between Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Guyana President Dr Ifraan Ali augurs well for the food stability of both nations and others, as the leaders have recognised the grave necessity to reduce their countries’ food import bills by way of agriculture, rice, agro-processing, livestock and human resources to name a few.
Speaking at Friday’s Agri Investment Forum, Massy Group of Companies president and CEO Gervais Warner revealed that collectively, the Caribbean imports billions worth of food and agricultural products from outside the region. He noted that this staggering figure does not take into account the economic activity associated with such a high level of food production.
The aim of a current Caricom initiative is to reduce the import bills of member countries by 25 per cent by 2025.
Of course, this will not be an easy task and for some, it could well be regarded a Herculean one, given consumers’ appetites for foreign food, which eats up sizeable chunks of many countries foreign exchange annually.
But the time for change is now and leaders who have made the pledge to ensure food security and cut down on importations must remain laser-focused on what lies ahead.
The thrust towards agriculture has been bandied about in Trinidad and Tobago before, dating back to former Prime Minister Patrick Manning in 2007, who proposed the idea of mega-farms to alleviate the country’s food woes. Manning believed the farms would propel farmers to become trained in modern agricultural techniques and put a dent on the domestic food import bill so that by 2020, T&T could be partially self-sufficient in food production.
That vision was not realised, 2020 has come and gone and the food import bill remains a main source of worry now just as it did then.
But with new leaders in T&T and in the region, the hope to “grow what we eat and eat what grow” should stay on the front burner.
The effort by Guyana’s Minister of Agriculture to meet with T&T business leaders to set up operations in his country’s agro-processing and agriculture sector should therefore be seen as a foundation on which to build.
Leaders have said they have a responsibility to take urgent action on the issue of food. They also have the responsibility to see all these plans and ideas through to fruition.
