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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
CARICOM Agriculture Ministerial Meeting
Opening Ceremony
Statement by the FAO Director-General
José Graziano da Silva
The Bahamas 24 February 2015
Your Excellency Honorable Alfred Gray, Minister of Agriculture of The Bahamas,
Honorable Ministers of Agriculture of the Caribbean Community,
Distinguished Participants,
Ladies and Gentlemen
1. It is an honor to be in The Bahamas. And I am thankful for the invitation to open today’s meeting of CARICOM Ministers of Agriculture.
2. The idea for this meeting comes from the FAO Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean held in Chile, in May 2014.
3. On that occasion, the Caribbean Ministers of Agriculture suggested to establish an annual consultation with FAO. We listened to your request.
4. This consultation is an opportunity to review in more detail FAO´s program of work for the Caribbean.
5. It will also be an important support to the formal discussions and priority setting that will take place at the next FAO Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean.
6. In my remarks to you this morning I would like to provide some context for the discussion.
7. The main point I want to make is that ensuring food security and nutrition for all needs to be our main goal.
8. Since 1990, the prevalence of undernourishment in the Caribbean fell from 27 to 20 percent. However, even today, 7.5 million people suffer from hunger in the region.
9. Obesity is another challenge the region faces. We need to tackle all dimensions of hunger and malnutrition together.
10. This is already on our agendas.
11. At the international level, ending hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity is one of FAO’s global goals and drives our program of work.
12. At the regional level, we have the Hunger-Free Latin America and the Caribbean Initiative.
13. At the CARICOM level, we have the CARICOM Food and Nutrition Security Action Plan approved in 2011.
14. At the national level, you are translating the regional action plan into national ones, in many cases directly responding to the Zero Hunger Challenge launched by the United Nations Secretary-General.
15. The strategies you are developing and implementing bring a comprehensive view that tackle the multiple dimensions of food insecurity, and propose to deal with its root causes as well as its consequences.
16. This is a winning combination. And FAO is proud to play an active part in all these efforts.
17. Let me add that a vibrant agricultural sector can be an important driver for sustainable and inclusive development in your countries.
18. Agriculture creates employment opportunities, especially important for the youth, and is critical to reduce rural poverty. Agriculture can supply the Caribbean tourism industry.
19. And local production is also a way to recover traditional crops and to increase self-sufficiency, especially important at times of high and volatile international food prices and food import bills.
20. FAO wants to work with you to tap into the full potential of agriculture in your countries.
21. Let me now refer to the extreme natural events that affect the Caribbean and that are made more frequent, more violent and more unpredictable by climate change.
22. They are a threat to agriculture, food security and the sustainable development of your islands. Thus, disaster risk management, raising your preparedness levels, adapting to climate change, and building resilience are crucial.
Ladies and gentlemen,
23. I have describes some of the elements that guide our work in the Caribbean.
24. And responding to the priorities you identified at our last FAO Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, we are specifically focusing on:
a. Supporting zero hunger and malnutrition programs;
b. Improving food and feed systems to address the food import bill;
c. Building resilience; and,
d. Strengthening agriculture, food security and nutrition governance and policy.
25. Let me highlight that FAO is aligning its global, regional, subregional and national work. This helps ensure that our efforts are coherent, add up to more than isolated actions, and contribute to your national development plans.
26. We are organizing our work around regional initiatives to accomplish this.
27. We have three regional initiatives for Latin America and the Caribbean. All of them benefit the Caribbean.
28. The first one supports your food and nutrition security efforts, and includes actions that I have already mentioned.
29. The second regional initiative strengthens family farming. In the Caribbean, as in many developing countries, family farmers are crucial actors in increasing local availability of food and reducing hunger and malnutrition.
30. And the third regional initiative works to improve food and feed systems and is specifically designed for the Caribbean. It aims to:
a. Strengthen and add value to local production;
b. Recover local products, increasing the offer of healthy, nutritious and fresh food;
c. Reduce the dependency on food imports, and
d. Provide employment opportunities,
31. The regional initiative is a joint effort involving FAO, governments, and partners such as CARDI, CABA, CAFAN, UWI and IICA.
32. And it is funded through a combination of FAO regular program resources and contributions from actors such as IFAD, the Caribbean Development Bank, and Petrocaribe.
33. Our FAO subregional Coordinator for the Caribbean will explain in greater detail this initiative and discuss with you our ongoing work in the region. We look forward to listening to your views.
34. This afternoon we will meet again. I will speak in more detail about the transformational changes inside FAO.
Ministers, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
35. Let me end by saying that I am here today to reaffirm FAO’s commitment to help you reach your development challenges..
36. Ending hunger and malnutrition is within our grasp. Let us work together and make it happen.
37. Thank you for your attention and I wish you a productive meeting.
Welcome Remarks
By
The Honourable V. Alfred Gray, MP
Minister of Agriculture, Marine Resources
&
Local Government
On the occasion of the
Caribbean Ministers of Agriculture’s Meeting with the Director General of the United Nations’
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
British Colonial Hilton
1 Bay Street, Nassau N. P., The Bahamas
9:00 am Tuesday 24th February, 2015
Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen,
I extend warm greetings and welcome to my Regional Colleagues, (Ministers of Agriculture from the Caribbean) and a special welcome to the Director General of FAO Dr. José Graziano da Silva and thank him for agreeing to meet with us sometime today.
Additionally, I wish to recognize the presence of and welcome members of the Diplomatic Corps, Senior Government Officials and Senior Managers of my Ministry, BAIC and BAMSI.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the meetings that will take place today, will chart the way forward for CARICOM’s New Agriculture thrust.
The policy framework of this New Agriculture thrust for the Caribbean should be reflected in each countries’ agribusiness plan which has or must be evolved as to the dictates of that country’s need.
Prior to the Independence of each of our countries, and until the World Trade Organization’s ruling on preferential markets, Agriculture Sectors in CARICOM States were geared simply towards providing commodities for a global market which was rooted in slavery and colonialism.
Since our various Independence, our several economies have evolved in a manner, that our dependence on agricultural exports is no longer primary source of foreign exchange earnings.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Virtually every economy in CARICOM, with the exception of the three continental states (Guyana, Belize and Suriname), depends on tourism as the main engine that drives their economy and serves as the greatest foreign exchange earner.
Tourism has literally changed our economies as well as the role of Agriculture plays in our various economies. Some of us may not have recognized this change, however all of us have become food dependent, hence our huge food import bill of between $5 and $6 billion a year for the region.
We, as CARICOM Ministers of Agriculture should seek to move beyond these platitudes about Agriculture, and follow the European Union’s example - making it mandatory for each member state to contribute to a common fund for Agricultural Development. If we do not do this, we will not, in the foreseeable future, rise above being a food deficit region.
To kick start such a Fund, Contributions from the various countries should be based on each state’s ability to contribute to such a fund. The Fund should be used to lifting the technical skills of the human resources which are engaged in Agriculture, such as the small farmers and those engaged in cottage industries, many of whom are women and small food processors. The organizational structure of such a Fund should comprise representatives of commodity groups such as the Caribbean Poultry Association (CPA), the Caribbean Network of Rural Women Production (CANROP) and the Caribbean Farmers Network (CaFAN) who should play leading roles, in this paradigm shift as we seek to advance regional agriculture and move from Regional food dependency to regional self-sufficiency.
The financial programme should be buttressed by the utilization, of national tertiary and secondary agricultural academic institutions, in the provision of technical training. At these institutions, there should be a high degree of concentration on skills development for our young people so as to emphasize Agriculture and Agribusiness being driven by Science and Technology.
It is recognized that as we tackle our large food import bill, most of the foreign exchange earned from our Tourism industries is being lost to food imports, and we are therefore creating jobs for people and businesses in other regions.
We in CARICOM, need to consider the following questions: - eg: - Why should we in The Bahamas import rice from Thailand when Haiti and Guyana have the capacity to supply us with all the rice we need? Why should Trinidad and Tobago buy its mutton and goat meat from New Zealand, when we in The Bahamas and Barbados can supply them with all the fresh lamb, mutton and goat meat they need? Why should we depend on the US to supply all of the corn required for our livestock industries when Belize has demonstrated that it has the capacity to grow and supply corn at global level quantity and at reasonable prices?
Fellow Ministers, Mr. Director-General, I realize that the idea of the Fund is new. In a few days, Prime Ministers of the Caribbean will meet here in Nassau and we should present them with the way forward for a new business plan for Caribbean Agriculture.
Tomorrow, Colleague Ministers and Director-General we will travel to North Andros to see our National tertiary agriculture and marine science training institution, (BAMSI) The Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute.
The government of The Bahamas in reflecting the vision of our Prime Minister, sited the Institute on the fifth largest island, Andros, in the Caribbean Basin.
In addition to its role in agriculture and marine sciences, this Institute is the centre-piece of our thrust in Family Island or rural transformation. Around the Institute’s campus, we envisage that a new city will evolve and thereby assist in reversing the drift to our urban centres of Nassau and Freeport.
In our Family Islands, Agriculture is the core economic driver. BAMSI is to be the instrument through which Bahamian Agriculture will be transformed from a subsistence/part time, and seasonal activity to a sustainable economic and environmentally friendly business.
Sometimes, all of us must ask ourselves, “how did we get to where we are?” In September, 1986 at the GATT Conference in Uruguay, John Block, then the US Secretary of Agriculture in the Regan Administration, made the following statement:
“The idea that developing countries should feed themselves is an anachronism from a by-gone era. They would better ensure their food security by relying on US agricultural products, what are available in most cases, at lower costs.”--
That statement, seem to have declared that the concept of food self-sufficiency for Small Island States (SIDS) was officially dead, as it ushered in the era of cheap foods from the United States and nullified the notion of food security. For the Caribbean countries themselves and the world, bought into this idea; and CARICOM countries in particular became victims of this policy which was adopted, and enforced by the mega Food supplying agencies around the world.
In the Caribbean we had generally succumbed to this thinking, and had allowed our agricultural sectors to decline from the lack of sufficient human and financial investments. We embarked on a programme to import our food thus placing our countries in a strangle hold of food deficit positions.
In a recent email from the out-going executive director of CARDI, Dr. Arlington Chesney, recommends that CARICOM should look at
“new agriculture as a business that encompasses the production of inputs, the sale of product, to its final user and must be viewed within the framework of being a major contributor to the sustainable development of CARICOM.”
He emphasized that the elements of sustainability are: The Economy, The Environment and Social Equality.
1) As For The Economy – we must diversify, increase production and productivity and become more market driven.
2) As for The Environment – we must address climate change and its variability, resiliency and mitigation.
3) And as for, Social Equity – there must be greater profit sharing, between and within components of the value chain, thereby sensitizing “challenged” groups, particularly the youth and women.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The quest to achieve this New Agriculture for our region, must always keep these three ideals, as the signposts as we journey on, (with the assistance of our international partners), to regional self-sufficiency in food.
Again, I thank you for coming and it is my great pleasure to declare this congress officially opened.
Thank You.
© Copyright 2015 by thebahamasweekly.com
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