Caribbean must educate populace on value of local, high-quality foods – President Ali
His Excellency, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali says the Caribbean has the potential to produce most of the food products it imports and those countries must educate their populations about the value of eating high quality, local produce.
The President made this statement during his keynote address at the virtual CARICOM Regional Dialogue on Food Security on Friday.
“We cannot continue to eat third quality or second quality food when we can produce first quality food. We have to be brave. We have to be brave in addressing these issues. We can’t walk along the side-lines anymore,” President Ali said.
Dr. Ali is the lead Head of Government in the CARICOM Quasi Cabinet with responsibility for Agriculture.
The President says the Dialogue plays an important role, as it allows participants to deliberate on strengthening regional food security and response mechanisms to the threat of climate change. The Head of State noted that CARICOM has been proactive in responding to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including in the food systems. It has since established a Ministerial Task Force to advance food, nutrition and security.
Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Zulfikar Mustapha says the lucrative agriculture sector is key to transforming the Caribbean region’s food systems.
“Our Heads of Government have recognised the value of taking a more holistic view of our food system when our Taskforce was established earlier this year.
The Region’s food system transformation is at the core of our development aspirations.”
Minister Mustapha said solutions will be different for each Member State because of the countries’ unique features. He noted however, that the Region can shape the context and arrange the solutions for its food system.
The Minister added that in the coming years, the members of the recently-established Ministerial Taskforce will strive to ensure that all activities are geared towards transforming the Region’s agri-food system.
“We envision a modernised e-agriculture sector with enhanced incomes, enhanced productivity, value-addition, increased market access, and the production of safe and nutritious agricultural commodities that CARICOM will produce for itself and the global market,” the Minister explained.
Barbados Prime Minister Hon. Mia Amor Mottley shared similar sentiments on utilising local products.
“Our governments cannot continue to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on chronic non-communicable disease. We have had an over reliance on antibiotics, whether in our livestock, much of which we import, and indeed on some of our crops, and ultimately, all of those feed into our environment.”
Additionally, Minister of Agriculture of Antigua and Barbuda, Hon. Samantha Marshall, said the Region is committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. She noted, however, that shortfalls in capacity are significant hinderances to instituting policies.
“One of the critical areas we need to begin focus on if we are going to access and embrace innovation, and become more resilient and more sustainable for productive agriculture and food systems, is that we need to develop our human resource capacity to that level to give the necessary support.”
Minister Marshall called on partners within the Food and Agricultural Organization, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA); United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinators and the World Food Programme (WFP) to provide technical support in these areas.