US$5.3M initiative, CAPA, to support regional farmers, build food security

…to complement Caricom’s 25 by 25 efforts

As part of the regional food security agenda, the United Stated Agency for Development (USAID) has plugged US$5.3 million into an agricultural programme – Caribbean Agricultural Productivity Improvement Activity (CAPA) – to support farmers and increase investments to enhance efficiency and reliability in growing and accessing food.

CAPA is a three-year initiative that focuses on helping farmers to increase fruit and vegetable productivity; build relationships between buyers, suppliers, and farmers; and improve farm-level extension systems. The programme will use an integrated value chain approach to facilitate the adoption of on-farm technologies such as shade houses and climate smart practices to increase yields, strengthen farm to market logistics, and support value addition and practical storage solutions to maintain shelf life.
Countries that will benefit from this initiative include Suriname, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, Barbados, Grenada, St. Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago, and Guyana, where the programme headquarters is set up.
During the launch of CAPA at the University of Guyana Campus on Wednesday, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha, this initiative is necessary given the region’s vulnerability to climate change. He noted it will also push the Caribbean Community (CARICOM’s) aggressive food security agenda – Vision 25 by 25.
“This Activity serves a particular useful purpose at a critical time by enhancing the knowledge, skills and access of small-scale farmers to agriculture inputs and technology to promote improved agriculture practices and technology including climate smart agriculture.”
“The Caribbean Agricultural Productivity Improvement Activity will complement our efforts and provide much needed support throughout the entire value chain and in the process, augment Guyana’s, and indeed the region’s, effort at sustainability, diversifying the sector, commercializing the sector and in significantly contributing towards meeting the regional goal of reducing food imports by 25 per cent in 2025,” Minister Mustapha stated.
The USAID-funded CAPA is one of the initiatives by the US Government coming out of the 9th Summit of the Americas and is a major pillar of the US-Caribbean Partnership to Address the Climate Crisis 2030 (PACC2030).
Food insecurity challenges
According to US Ambassador to Guyana, Nicole Theriot, CAPA will address the food insecurity challenges facing the Caribbean region that have been exacerbated by the fallout from the Russia-Ukraine war, the ongoing climate crisis, rising food prices, and the disruption to supply chains.
The US diplomat affirmed the significance of CAPA in supporting improved smallholder access to markets and integration into value chains, as well as providing agritech and climate smart technology opportunities with small and medium agribusinesses and farmers.
“CAPA is going address these challenges by promoting sustainable agricultural practices; increasing farmer knowledge via improved extension capacity; formalizing smallholder market access by holding medium, small and micro inner price capacities, and improving the region’s access to locally produced food. And in that way, it actually meshes quite beautifully with the 25 by 25 programme of CARICOM,” Ambassador Theriot posited.
Meanwhile, USAID’s Regional Representative – Eastern and Southern Caribbean Mission, Mervyn Farroe, said the agency is working with Caribbean partners to mitigate the challenges affecting food production. He added that a key part of unlocking the full potential of the region’s agricultural sector is private sector partnership.
“CAPA will be addressing several challenges aimed at strengthening the supply chain for target fruits and vegetables. The Activity will have a significant focus on private sector engagement including strengthening the capacity of micro-small and medium enterprises in the agricultural sector and creating critical linkages, and access to markets in the region. Many of our smallholder farmers will benefit from access to world-class technical assistance, linkages with financial institutions and critical markets where there is the requisite demand.
“CAPA is about helping to ensure food security over the long term. This initiative will stimulate investments to increase efficiency and reliability in growing and accessing food so that farmers can better nourish families, communities, and nations,” Farroe stated.
The US$5.3 million CAPA programme is one of several initiatives supported by USAID in the Caribbean.
CAPA is being rolled out by US-based Improving Economies for Stronger Communities (IESC) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).
The activity includes three interconnected objectives to achieve tangible positive impact for smallholder farmers, enterprises, and consumers across the region. These are: increase smallholder market-led production of fruits and vegetables; improve domestic and regional market linkages for smallholder farmers; and strengthen public/private sector extension skills, capacity and systems to transfer best practices to smallholder farmers.
CAPA will also provide virtual capacity building and knowledge sharing events for stakeholders throughout the Eastern and Southern Caribbean region.
According to Associate Vice President and Practice Lead, Agriculture-led Growth – IESC, Adam Keatts, explained that the CAPA initiative has outlined a list of commodities as part of the target value chain that will be developed by each beneficiary country.
In Guyana, the focus will be on cherry, turmeric and coconut production. In St Vincent and the Grenadines will have banana and plantain, dasheen and sweet potato, and fresh vegetables. Suriname will have banana and plantain, turmeric and passion fruit. In Dominica, they will focus on cassava, dasheen and sweet potato, and passion fruit.
“As you can see, there’s a little bit of overlap between countries and so there is opportunities for us to share lessons across countries where those opportunities present themselves,” Keatts stated. (G8)