Does the mid-November visit to Guyana by Trinidad and Tobago’s Food Production Minister Devant Maraj add impetus to the ponderous pace at which the regional food security plan has been moving?
Last week’s warning by the 35th meeting of the Caricom Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) regarding continually rising food and fuel prices is one of those routine reminders the region has been receiving and ignoring for years, about the need to reduce its dependence on imports.
It is known, for example, that in recent years, imports have cost the region in excess of US$4 billion. While the region has been shelling out money to import food; it has been decidedly negligent in the matter of regional food security.
Caricom’s most recent wake-up call on the issue of regional food security coincides roughly with the exchange between Georgetown and Port of Spain on collaboration in the area of agricultural production. However, neither the Ministry of Food Production in Port of Spain nor the Ministry of Agriculture in Georgetown have as yet said very much about the outcome of the mid-November
