The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) is seeking to play a critical role in helping to develop “risk-mitigation measures” that would help to encourage investors to buy into the regional food security programme, according to the Institute’s Representative in Guyana, Ignatius Jean. And according to Jean work has already commenced in the development of modules for crop insurance in support of the regional initiative to buttress investor confidence in the agricultural sector.
Jean told Stabroek Business that the crop insurance modules being developed were similar to the catastrophe insurance models which had been implemented in various parts of the region with support from the World Bank and which had been extended to Guyana in the wake of the floods of 2005 and 2006.
Jean told Stabroek Business that providing insurance for the agricultural sector is one of the challenges which the regional food security initiative had to confront and overcome. “It is not easy to place that type of risk on the insurance market but it can be done. The challenge lies in coming up with a premium that is affordable and one from which you can derive a measure of benefit commensurate with the risk,” Jean added. According to Jean the risks associated with the agricultural sector would vary from country to country in the region. “The types of risks that would obtain in a country like Jamaica because of hurricanes would not apply in Guyana and it would therefore make more sense to put some crops in Guyana rather than in Jamaica,” he said. Meanwhile the local IICA Representative has told Stabroek Business that major foreign exchange “leakages” from the region resulting from food imports for the tourism industry provide an important opportunity for the creation of linkages between agriculture and tourism as part of the broader regional food security strategy.
“While the amount of food that is being consumed by the tourism sector in the region is considerable, most of that food represents imports from North America and Europe. One way to reduce the region’s food import bill is to feed into the supply chain of the tourism industry food produced in the region and it is this thinking that has created the concept of developing linkages between agriculture and tourism,” Jean told Stabroek Business.
And according to the St Lucian-born Jean, Guyana is ideally positioned to consolidate the
agro-tourism thrust in the region by supporting the push to replace food imports for the tourism sector with food produced in the region,
But the IICA representative cautioned that the strengthening of the relationship between the agricultural and tourism sectors in the region will require new approaches to dealing with issues of standards, safety and health. “Where persons in the agriculture sector want to get into the business of supplying the tourism sector they need to be aware of the need to adhere to certain minimum standards particularly when dealing with tourists from North America and Europe. “If you want to access those markets you must meet those minimum standards. This also applies to the local market where people have become more discerning about what they consume,” Jean added.
