Caricom lead Head for Agriculture President Bharrat Jagdeo last evening chided the policymakers for their “patent neglect” of the agricultural sector in the region and called for it to be given similar benefits and attention as other sectors.

Speaking at a Caricom organized Public-Private Sector Consultation on Agri-Business at the Pegasus Hotel, Jagdeo said agriculture needed to become an important part of the development strategy for the region. He stated that it needed to be seen as being as important as other sectors such as tourism.

“Much of what will happen to agriculture in the next decade and beyond will be, to a large extent, determined by how seriously the policy makers of our region treat agriculture,” the President said.

He said that there was “a patent neglect of agriculture in many of our countries for many, many years… this neglect came from a policy perspective, incentives perspective and also in terms of budgetary resources allocated to this sector.” He said not many resources were dedicated to areas such as Drainage and Irrigation, Research Development and Market Development, which indicated that they were not seen as important.

President Jagdeo pointed out that the sector needed attention since in the future there will be a greater demand for food in the world. He said that the region needed to prepare to take up its rightful place in ensuring food security in the future.

Jagdeo said policymakers needed to ensure that there were adequate supplies to feed and how to create a viable competitive export industry for agriculture. He stated that in the future the region has the possibility of contributing towards satisfying a growing demand for food in the world while earning resources for the region.

The trade policy needs to be supportive of the creation of a regional agricultural market and external trade policy must not be seduced by “free market fundamentalism”, which he said led to the global financial crisis. He opined that the region may have been seduced by this while negotiating for the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).