Guyana elected as Rapporteur of 41st Regular Meeting for IICA’s Executive Committee
–Executive Committee to discuss critical technical, administrative and financial matters relating to agriculture in the Americas.
Today, the twelve countries comprising the Executive Committee for the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) met as part of a two-day consultation to analyse technical, administrative and financial matters of critical importance to the IICA’s member states.
During the meeting, Guyana was elected the Rapporteur for this year’s committee while Paraguay was elected as Chair. Guyana, therefore, has the responsibility of presenting the resolutions of the meeting for approval by the Executive Committee.
In his address, on behalf of Guyana, Agriculture Minister, Hon. Zulfikar Mustapha told the committee that great emphasis is being placed on the development of the agri-food system in the Caribbean.
“Guyana has been placing great effort to develop, not only our agri-food system, but that of the Caribbean. Our President has been elected as the lead spokesperson in the Caribbean to speak on agriculture. He presented a document to CARICOM proposing the development of a Ministerial Taskforce to advance the agri-food system, which was adopted and is now in place and very active. Several meetings were hosted and I think we have been successful in advancing the agri-food system in the Caribbean tremendously over the last three months.”
The Minister noted that Guyana has also successfully held its food systems dialogue which saw the participation of several stakeholders. Several suggestions and comments will be taken into consideration when preparing the regional document that will later be presented to the United Nations.
“The Taskforce was also able to host the CARICOM Food Safety Summit dialogue. We are hopeful, that Caribbean States will go with one voice to the UN Food Summit. The Director-General would’ve alluded to the fact that we need to have a strong voice and stand as a united front in order to advance the agri-food system in the Caribbean,” Minister Mustapha said.
He also told the delegation that although Guyana was able to achieve several successes in the agriculture sector over the last ten months, the ongoing pandemic and the recent countrywide flooding has resulted in some setbacks in the sector.
“[Director General of IICA] Dr. Otero also highlighted the vulnerability of Caribbean countries. For example, since last August, Guyana has made several advances in infrastructural development and boosted production and productivity. Farmers also commenced large-scale production of none traditional crops, while also maintaining the production of traditional crops. With all those successes, we’ve recently suffered serious setbacks.
Not only because of the ongoing global pandemic, COVID-19, which saw farmers scaling down on production and other agriculture activities, but recently we’ve suffered one of the most devastating natural disasters in our country’s history. For weeks, Guyana has been battling with severe flooding as a result of the onset of the rainy season. It is now being considered a level two, and in some parts of the country, a level three disaster. A majority of the agriculture sector has been destroyed, thousands of families were displaced, we’ve seen severe losses in both the crops and livestock industries with almost 90 per cent of our crops being destroyed,” Minister Mustapha said.
The subject Minister disclosed that the Ministerial Taskforce is also looking at mitigating measures to help farmers cope with the impacts of disasters.
“Things like insurance, and how we can approach and properly implement that. We have to further discuss those measures and come up with ideas that will also impact vulnerable and developing countries and economies in the Caribbean.
The Caribbean is also heavily dependent on imports and as a Taskforce, we’ve discussed reducing those imports by 25 per cent by 2025. This will require improved infrastructure through budgetary allocation, as well as improved facilities for our farmers,” Minister Mustapha said.
During his presentation on the role of agriculture in transforming the food system in the Americas, Director General of IICA, Dr. Manuel Otero said that the agri-food system in the Americas is very diverse and that member states share various commonalities.
“When we talk about agri-food systems in the Americas, we need to understand how diverse it really is. There are many different systems, defined by historical conditions, geographic conditions, and so forth. What we have in common is great biological wealth,” Dr. Otero said.
Furthermore, IICA has also pledged its support to both Guyana and Suriname to further assist the countries with their flood-relief efforts.
The twelve countries comprising this year’s Executive Committee are Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Suriname, and the United States of America.