Against the backdrop of continually mounting region-wide concern over the difficulties being encountered by the Carib-bean in reducing expenditure of food imports, yet another high profile forum has drawn attention to the urgent need for countries in the region, both individually and collectively, to take resolute action to reduce food imports.
Addressing the Central Bank of Barbados’ 2019 Caribbean Economic Forum on Thursday May 23rd, the Bank’s Sixth Visiting Fellow, Dr Linda Tesar declared that an option for economic growth for the region’s leading tourist destination reposes in the initiation of serious initiatives to reduce its food imports.
The pronouncement echoes concerns that have resonated across the region for more than a decade regarding what observers say, is a heavy and deepening dependence on extra-regional food imports in preference to the consolidation by individual countries of its domestic food cultivation programmes, Barbados being among the biggest importers of foreign foods, mostly to meet the needs of the country’s steady inflow of tourists from metropolitan countries.
