New day dawns for agriculture

Policy-makers and other stakeholders in the Region’s agriculture sector have been challenged to quickly move forward with renewed resolve to ensure increased productivity and competitiveness in the agriculture sector.

Mr. Joseph Cox, new Assistant Secretary-General (ASG), Trade and Economic Integration at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, threw out the challenge Thursday at the opening ceremony of a Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) on Agriculture.

The two-day Meeting is being held at the CARICOM Secretariat under the Chairmanship of the Hon Eugene Hamilton, Minister of Agriculture, Marine Resources, Cooperatives, Environment  and Human Settlement, St. Kitts and Nevis.

Mr. Cox, who took up his position at the Georgetown-based Secretariat a mere five weeks ago, pointed out that for agriculture in the Region to achieve its full potential, stakeholders needed to “turn the pages of time and recognise that it is indeed a new day”.

Using the “new day” as his refrain, the Assistant Secretary-General argued that agriculture was a business and not a social welfare programme. And, given that some of the subsectors that were previously lucrative were now “moribund”, he added that the time was ripe to seek out areas of opportunity where the Community had a competitive and comparative advantage.

Remarks by Assistant Secretary-General, Trade and Economic Integration 8 October 2015

To counter the recent developments in the international trade environment, as well as the loss and/or erosion of preferential markets, Mr. Cox called for more attention to be focused on the Regional market that accounted for about 15 million persons.

Agriculture development strategies, he said, also had to be honed to facilitate an environment that lent itself to increased production and access to global and Regional markets.

“However, in that light, we must be clinical in our assessments and pragmatic in our search for solutions while ensuring that said solutions are congruent with a changing economic environment,” he told the delegates.

He added that for agriculture to become dynamic and competitive there had to be partnerships between the public and private sectors and trades unions. Pointing out that collaboration was an imperative and not a choice, he called for the establishment of a mechanism for meaningful dialogue among the three entities.

The Assistant Secretary-General also called for a renewal of efforts to deal with matters of land titling with concessional financing being provided to assist with the acquisition of titles. He also suggested a re-engineered process which modernised mechanisms and treated frontally with issues such as root of title and the referee system.

Another area he cited as important to the beginning of a new day in agriculture was the Common External Tariff (CET).

“Let us begin the new day by acknowledging that the CET is impatient of reform in terms of waivers and suspensions. The status quo which obtains threatens to undermine the very framework for sustainability that we are all committed to enhancing.  We need a structural protocol replete with the transparency guarantees that public policy demand that once and for all treats with the requests for waivers and suspensions. Indeed these requests must be determined on a data driven basis only,” he told delegates.

Among the matters the Ministers and their delegations will discuss are commodities which the Community had identified as priorities to boost agricultural production and trade. The commodities are roots and root tubers, especially cassava; small ruminants; herbs and spices, especially hot peppers; and fisheries.

Also high on the meeting’s agenda is discussion on progress made by the Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency (CAHFSA) since it was operationalised in October last year with the recruitment of a Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Lindley Collins.

Agriculture and climate-change related matters, agri-business development, the needs of small farmers with respect to the Regional market infrastructure are among the other issues the Ministers will address during their two-day meeting.