 In 2013, The UWI has been at the forefront of several agribusiness and food security conferences at home and abroad, including the recently hosted “Agribusiness Essential for Food Security: Empowering Youth and Enhancing Quality Products” at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port of Spain from June 30 to July 6, as well as the Beijing Agricultural Conference, hosted by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing in June.
In order to address the issues of food security, sustainable development of an agribusiness approach and increasing food prices, the Caribbean Agro-Economic Society (CAES), along with the Caribbean Food Crops Society (CFCS) and the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) hosted the timely Agribusiness conference.
The conference examined key issues including enhancing food quality and safety throughout the food chain; the risks associated with food production and agricultural development which contribute to price volatility and food insecurity; relevant methods for empowering youth with agribusiness essentials for food security; appropriate mechanisms for addressing the global impact of food and nutrition insecurity; and tertiary education and training for food and nutrition security.
For Dr Mario Fortune, Chairman of the local organising conference committee, “all of the great scientists in agriculture have taken part in this annual conference which began in 1963, there is your Professor Clement Sankat, Professor Carlisle Pemberton, Dr. Gary Garcia, Dr. Nkrumah Roberts…it’s a great place for scientists, researchers to get together and share their ideas.” The CFCS has a mandate to foster communication and contribute to the development of science, technology and the production of food crops and animals in the Caribbean.
UWI Dean of the Faculty of Food and Agriculture, Prof. Carlisle Pemberton, agrees that the emphasis on the development of the agricultural sector and associated teaching programmes, research initiatives and outreach projects, are key components for future development of the region.
He explained that the Faculty has also adopted a strategy of research and development to further the achievement of food and nutrition security regionally by introducing the new option in "Managing Food Security" in its graduate degree offerings and partnering with McGill University to undertake a large scale research project on improving the food and nutrition security of households with school-aged children.
“The issue of food and nutrition security remains of vital concern to the Region. In addition to the burden the levels of food imports place on the foreign exchange resources, the health and wellness of the Caribbean society is being threatened by the nutritionally related diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, which are also burdening the health sector resources,” Professor Pemberton explained. “Thus the Region has to refocus on using the agricultural sector to produce the kinds of foods that will lead to a more healthy population and one that would contribute to regional and national economic development, rather than being an obstacle to this process.”
Similarly, Professor Clement Sankat, Principal and PVC for the St Augustine Campus of The UWI, congratulated the organizers for having a forum on youth empowerment and one on young farmers.
“This fittingly describes the direction in which we in the Caribbean ought to be moving. First, we ought to cultivate a passion for producing and consuming local and regional agricultural products of quality and distinction that are fully West Indian. And second, we ought to find creative ways to get our young people interested and involved in agriculture,” the Principal stated.
The UWI St. Augustine Campus has been looking very carefully at ways in which it can positively impact the food and agricultural sector in Trinidad & Tobago and the region. In addition to new innovative programmes in the Faculty of Food and Agriculture, the university has acquired prime land at Orange Grove, which will be transformed into a modern, new Field Station.
The Jagdeo initiative:
UWI experts were also part of a meeting of the technical management advisory committee (TMAC) set up by CARICOM to look at co-ordination of agricultural research and development in the region. TMAC was established to define ways to address one of the 10 key binding constraints identified in the Jagdeo Initiative, “Inadequate Research and Development”. This was led by the Ministry of Agriculture, St Lucia and convened by the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI).
Named after the former Guyanese President, the Jagdeo Initiative is a strategy for removing constraints to the development of agriculture in the Caribbean. It builds upon past regional efforts to develop a common agricultural policy (CAP). It is expected that the meeting would agree on the way forward for a regional strategy for research and development, a strategy for linkages with Latin America, and identification of essentials to address climate change.
The Beijing Conference:
At this conference, which attracted scores of participants from across the globe, Professor Clement Sankat participated in a panel discussion that explored the challenges and prospects of Caribbean agriculture. Agriculture, he said, is the mainstay of several Caribbean countries, with a primary focus on bananas, sugar, rice, tropical fruits and vegetables. Its contribution to GDP ranges from 0.8% Trinidad & Tobago, to 26% in Guyana and 28% in Haiti.
On the other side of the scale, the top six food imports in the Caribbean as of 2010 are rice, wheat, maize, processed foods, meat and vegetable oil. While wheat and maize are not produced here, certainly Guyana has lost competitive market share in rice, a key staple, to cheaper and/or more expensively branded products. “The Caribbean needs, he emphasized, to consume more of what we produce and hopefully produce much more of our foods such as rice, root crops, meat, milk, fish and coconut oil.”
This loss of market share has fed a vicious cycle where lower domestic production leads to higher imports, which in turn affect consumer preferences through the lower priced and often more consistently available imported substitutes. These imports further restrict the domestic market and squeeze profit margins for producers.
In this context, open market conditions have left the sector’s leading export industries exposed and vulnerable. This in turn has led to sharp declines to GDP, unemployment and negative social effects. These challenges are further complicated by rural to urban/regional/international migration in search of jobs; an aging farmer population and lack of interest by youth; limited finances for agricultural investment; the absence or, at times, inconsistent policies across the region to support key development areas; as well as insufficient attention to dedicated research at the highest levels.
Professor Sankat recapitulated the need to move beyond primary production, from agriculture production to food production, to embrace the concept of the value-chain system of interrelated economic transactions and to engage a wider set of actors in the system. Key action areas must be investment in new research development and transfer, linkages and relationships in the agricultural sector and a new class of food producers. All of these must be supported by national and regional policies, extension capacity, restructured curricula at various levels and an expanded local marketing infrastructure.
He concluded by stating that, in tandem with all of the above, there must be improved quality and safety, improved market access (current and potential), a focus on food and nutritional security, along with the adoption of biotechnology and climate smart technologies so critical for vulnerable small island states such as the Caribbean.
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