Guyana hosts inaugural meeting of CARICOM Special Ministerial Task Force on Food Production and Food Security

…Task Force looking to transform agri-food system

With Guyana once again taking the lead on agriculture in Caricom, a Special Ministerial Task Force on Food Production and Food Security has been established to advance Caricom’s agri-food systems’ agenda.

The Food Production and Food Security Agenda was put forward by President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali during the 32nd Caricom Heads of Government Meeting last February. CARICOM subsequently endorsed the agenda and agreed to the establishment of the task force to implement the strategy.
Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha, who also serves as Chairman of the Special Ministerial Task Force, hosted the inaugural meeting with Ministers of Agriculture from the ten participating Caricom member states on Wednesday.
During his address, Mustapha said the objective of the task force is to guide the regional position towards the transformation of the agri-food system, allowing for a significantly more resilient, wealth-generating and food- secure region.
“Food system transformation is at the core of our aspirations and mandate. Therefore, our activities over the next years would be geared towards this goal. Specifically, the Caricom Agri-Food System Strategy seeks to frontally address the complete removal of all technical barriers to trade, development of a Caricom Cross Border Agri-Food Investment Strategy to support production corridors, accelerating the pace of finalising and adopting of the CARICOM Investment Code, completion of the reform of the CET suspension and rule of origin regimes to afford protection to regional enterprises, and to support the competitiveness of regional forms, implementation of E-Agriculture Strategy, development of measures to promote de-risking of the sector, improvement of transport and logistics, and investment in production, research and development,” he said.
To this end, the minister said, an Implementation Plan with 36 broad policy areas has been articulated. Select priority sectors such as poultry, corn/soya bean, rice, beef, pork, mutton, coconut, niche vegetables, fruits, and fruit juices, ginger and turmeric have also been identified to advance the commercialisation agenda of the regional food system.
The Ministerial Task Force comprises Agriculture Ministers and other officials from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, The Bahamas, Dominica, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.
During the meeting, the Task Force also reviewed, amended, and accepted the Terms of Reference (TOR) which were developed by a team of technical officers from the CARICOM Secretariat. The TOR outlines the objectives, purpose, membership and governance of the task force.
During his presentation, Programme Manager, Agricultural and Agro-Industrial Development, Caricom, Shaun Baugh, discussed the implementation plan for the strategy. He said the objective of the plan was to commercialise the Regional agri-food industry with actual commencement of Private Sector production activities in priority sectors identified, within a three-year window. He also discussed several broad policy measures and reforms required to support the commercialisation of the Region’s Agri-food System.