Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states have been able to achieve 57% of the target set in keeping with cutting the region’s food import bill by 25% by 2025.
A Ministry of Agriculture release on Monday noted the announcement on February 3rd at the first meeting (held virtually) of the CARICOM Ministerial Taskforce (MTF) on Food Production and Food Security that member states were collectively able to achieve 57% of the target set in keeping with realizing ‘Vision 25 by 2025’.
According to the data, products such as cocoa reached 96.13%, dairy 84.36%, meat 72.28%, root crops 70.91%, fruits70.77%, and poultry 70.19%, of the targeted production volume set for the year 2025.
The release said that the update came after the countries’ submission of reports detailing their production data for 2022 for targeted commodities. This, as CARICOM moves towards lowering the regional import bill by 25% by the year 2025.
The MTF report pointed out that countries such as Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, have made “significant advances” in the production of commodities such as ginger, turmeric, corn, cocoa, dairy, fish, fruits, meat, poultry, root crops, soya bean, and table eggs.
It said that for 2022, Guyana produced 20,195 metric tonnes of ginger and turmeric, 144,289 metric tonnes of root crops, 21,870 metric tonnes of fish, and 40,749 metric tonnes of coconut.
In addition to the updates on member states’ production targets, attendees were also updated on several other notable achievements.
The release also noted that during the 104th Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED), Trade Policies for Animal and Animal Products, a Regional Agricultural Health and Food Safety Policy, Special Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) guidelines for 19 commodities, and alternative SPS settlement mechanisms were approved.
Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha, who chairs the MTF, said that these are great achievements for the Taskforce. He posited that with these mechanisms in place, a level playing field is being created making way for easier trade in agricultural products, intra-regionally.
“These four achievements are testimony to the hard work of the MTF. If we are allowed to increase intra-regional trade, we will be well on the way to reducing the regional food import bill which is the ultimate goal of CARICOM in keeping with its food security agenda. In just one year, collaborative efforts among member states have yielded much success”, he was quoted as saying.
Mustapha added that several priority areas have been identified for 2023. These include agriculture insurance and financing, trade and E-agriculture, resource mobilisation, and trade support. According to the minister, these will help to advance the efforts of the MTF and CARICOM as it works towards achieving ‘Vision 25 by 2025’.
Friday’s meeting was also the ninth convened since the establishment of the MTF. The next CARICOM MTF meeting will be held sometime in March, the release added.
