Universities and Caricom’s food challenge

(T&T Guardian, March 22, 2023) - Not long ago, while excavating some online archives, I came across a belatedly declassified Caricom document from 1975 outlining a programme of technical assistance via UNDP for “feasibility studies on selected regional agricultural projects.”

According to the 48-year-old document, among the principal reasons for exploring new options was the fact that “the traditional export orientation in the Caribbean area has resulted in insufficient food production for local consumption.”

At that time, it was also estimated that up to 40 percent of the region’s fast growing tourism earnings was being re-exported for food purchases to satisfy the sector.

It had been noted at the time that Guyana and Belize, among the early members of Caricom (Suriname was not yet a member), had large areas of unexploited agricultural land and low population densities.

The current reality has not changed that much, except for the urgency of the tasks at hand. Imports to feed tourists have if anything increased, and an ability to purchase foreign food proved to be a disincentive to invest in a notion of “food sovereignty” – a concept that has evolved over time to focus increasingly on domestic production.

To be fair, it is not that absolutely nothing has happened. Regional institutions such as CARDI (established in 1975), IICA, and the FAO among others, have consistently extended support in a wide selection of areas to essentially ensure that the diagnosis of 1975 would be addressed.

There can be discussions and debates on the degree to which such support has been adequate or whether these agencies have been influential in changing dangerous tendencies. But the fact is several agencies have been present and active. The focus, I believe, must be on the responsiveness of the respective states to the imperatives of change.

This supersedes the lure of domestic politics and the power dynamics that guide relations between ports and plantations. The pandemic era has emphasised the need to move much faster than we have on this question, and to ensure that the directions are sound and sustainable.

Among the realisations has to be the longstanding knowledge that, within Caricom, there are few countries objectively capable of feeding themselves. There are issues of limited land space, models of economic development that expand consumption bases, environmental concerns including the climate crisis, and a view that the food sector does not necessarily share equal qualitative space with other economic poles of development.

Government ministerial appointments to the food and agriculture sector, for example, do not command as much prestige and power as do portfolios focused on trade, commerce, and finance.

Vocational opportunities do not frequently highlight lucrative opportunities in the food production sector, and the education system has done little to dispel such a perception.

In this regard, it is significant that Caricom universities have determined to play a role in promoting achievement of the goal set by regional leaders last year to reduce the region’s annual food import bill of over US$4.3 billion by 25 percent by the year 2025.

This is a rather modest goal that focuses heavily on the agricultural science of domestic production but insufficiently on the social science of taste and consumption patterns.

The latter, of course, is much more easily proposed than achieved. But this is also more than mere “foreign tastes.” There has been an almost wilful absence of official effort to skip the delusion of an ability to feed ourselves all on our own, and to pursue collective regional will.

This brings us back to the studies proposed in 1975 and the objectives they were designed to pursue including “multi-national food development schemes.”

The Caricom universities project including The UWI, University of Guyana, and soon, the Anton de Kom University of Suriname (and hopefully The Bahamas and Belize), is proceeding based on the assumption that cross-border collaboration is an imperative and must be led by joint research, innovation and teaching.

This is a significant initiative that will also involve the participation of the Caricom Private Sector Organisation (CPSO).

Hopefully, this grouping will enjoy the willing ears and eyes of regional political, business and civil society leaders. It would however be advisable to ensure that such a collaboration proceed fearlessly through the socio-political maze of dependence.

Even in the face of vastly uneven growth, instability, and extreme vulnerability to natural disasters and external economic shocks, the food production project might well be Caricom’s sternest test at this moment.

It was deemed to be urgent almost 50 years ago. We do not appear to have done all that much to satiate such inward hunger.