Today is “Caricom Day” and we are only one of two members that have honoured the institution with a public holiday. To us, it signals that Caricom matters for so many reasons – social, economic, cultural, strategic, and as we discovered in 2020, political. It was its intervention then, of course, under the chairpersonship of Barbados’ inimitable PM Mia Mottley that literally saved our fledgling and still frail democracy from the machinations of the PNC under David Granger. Without Caricom, the PNC’s concocted narrative of “Western” interference would have received much more traction than it actually did.
Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of its launch in 1973, it warrants a closer look at the institution to ensure that the rationales for its formation are still relevant and if so, what can be done to achieve those goals that remain unfulfilled. Firstly, there has to be an acceptance of a willingness to be bold. There can be no complacency in an endeavour that has such high stakes for us, the people in the Caribbean. There were other colonies in far worse shape than we were at independence, but through a willingness to make hard decisions, they have forged far ahead. Notable in this regard is Singapore, a city-state with almost no natural resources, but it is now a “developed country”. In his book “From Third World to First”, Singapore’s first Prime Minister, Lee Kwan Yew explicitly cited the instance of Jamaica which was ahead of his country by so many criteria, but had subsequently lagged. What Singapore did was craft a strategic plan for its development and stuck to it with dogged determination.
Caricom’s leaders did have such a vision and plan back in 1973 when they signed the Treaty of Chaguaramas, but they and some of their successors have not stuck to it. For instance, the diversification of our economies to become more export-oriented has been one of the foundational goals of Caricom from the onset. What else could economies that had been founded to produce a single crop – sugar – do? The term “mono-crop” agriculture was invented in the Caribbean. The second prong should have been redundant, since historically, all our production was for export. In 1975, they signed the Regional Food Plan (RFP) and the Regional Food and Nutrition Strategy (RFNS) in 1983.
But for the Caribbean to diversify when they each had such small internal markets, they not only had to expand their markets: they also had to strategically rationalise their production. It was accepted from the beginning that it did not make sense, economic or otherwise, for each country to produce the same range of goods: the relative comparative advantages were identified quite early on. The only constraint was the lack of political will from the politicians to overcome their aversion to cooperation: each leader would rather be a big fish in a little pond.
Caricom appears to have finally learnt this basic lesson now that, led by the dynamic Mia Mottley, they have signed on to a “25-by-25” agreement – to cut their collective US$5 billion food bill by 25 per cent by 2025. Guyana has taken the lead by providing the land and bringing in large, professional companies to ensure we take care of the supply side to fill the demand. It is our hope that this initiative does not go the way of the Jagdeo Initiative on Agriculture back in 2004. Ten constraints had been identified as necessary to be removed if we were not only to become self-sufficient in food production but become large exporters in a food-security-conscious world.
The reason why none of these were resolved is the conclusion by the other leaders that since Guyana and Belize have the greatest amount of available agricultural land, they would benefit inordinately.
In the “25 by 25” initiatives, Guyana has taken the lead not only once again in providing the land, but has been pumping billions into the production of the identified strategic crops. It is hoped that the members of Caricom will keep their end of the bargain to provide markets. T&T’s stubborn stance on our honey, however, is ominous.
