The real significance of Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Rowley’s presentation on Wednesday, January 10, regarding the role that his country will play in shoring up the region’s overall food security bona fides, going forward, is significant from two perspectives. First, Dr. Rowley appears keen to promote the critical role that Trinidad and Tobago will play, alongside Guyana and Barbados, in seeking to strengthen the food security architecture of the Caribbean, as a whole, in the face of what, particularly over the past year, has been persistent warnings from reputable international organizations regarding the current (and perhaps even worsening) fragile condition of food security in the region.
Here it has to be said that the movement of food supplies from the producing countries of the region to those whose food security credentials are decidedly weaker is going to be a critical element in determining how successful, or otherwise, the overall undertaking is likely to be. Even without reading the full text of what Dr. Rowley had to say at the opening of his country’s Phoenix Park Industrial Estate, it is clear that his reference to the role which his country will play in the creation of a regional Cargo Ferry Service to support the movement of food that will target the ‘soft’ food security spots in the region, among other things, appears to be making the point that what lead roles Guyana and Barbados are playing in creating the framework for the critical regional food security project, Trinidad and Tobago, mostly through its shipping inventory, is making a no less critical contribution.
It should be pointed out that the “cargo ferry service” involving Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, of which Dr. Rowley spoke, is a critical cog in the wheel of the overall regional food security exercise since the movement of food supplies produced for dispatch to the countries that need to be supported is altogether an efficient and effective sea transport infrastructure, and this is where Trinidad comes in ‘big time.’ Of course, one makes this point mindful of the fact that Guyana and Barbados, respectively, have important roles to play in the various other aspects of the project, not least those involving the production of much of the food for intra-regional distribution, targeting the more vulnerable countries, and putting together the various logistical pieces, including those that have to do with the creation of a Regional Food Terminal. All of this makes it a truly collective regional project.
Part of the reason why this newspaper has been persistent on the issue of the region getting its act together on this project has to do with our recognition of the importance of the project to the region, and what we have already said are slippages that have been occurring in keeping the region, as a whole, abreast of the pace of project to its execution point. If our reminders of the importance of the project may have become overbearingly persistent, this is only because we are acutely aware that when it comes to pressing ahead with the effective execution of initiatives that are critical to the advancement of the region, the Caribbean has often appear to be asleep at the wheel. As we understand it, the food security travails of the region are very real and (from all indications) can grow considerably worse if we, along with those other institutions that have a vested interest, ease to sound our voices when our extant food security challenge starts to make its way off of the region’s ‘front burner.’
