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Food drives become imperative as investment forum gets underway
With a mini-exhibition and some 150 participants, the Regional Agriculture Investment Forum began yesterday with Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo urging governments to focus on action-oriented strategies rather than be part of the ‘blame’ game with the developed world.
The forum also began with calls for regional governments to better enable an environment for investors, bankers, and the private sector to inject the necessary resources to boost the agriculture industry thus ensure food security.
Addressing the gathering yesterday at the Conference Centre, President Jagdeo said that if the Region keeps complaining about the effects of climate change then a solution to the problem will never be found.
“We in this Region recognise that food security is very important and we have very strong views on the environment.”
The problem, the Head of State said, requires a global solution but unfortunately the Region cannot build walls around member-countries to isolate itself from the effects of global warning.
Unfortunately, he added, the impact would be the greatest on developing countries that has the least capacity to address these changes.
Regional governments, Jagdeo added, have the obligation for placing agriculture on the same level and according it the same fiscal measures and concessions as other sectors in the economy.
President Jagdeo noted that if Governments were to place great emphasis on the agriculture sector then a strong signal will be sent to investors.
He also expressed delight with the attendance of the private sector, bankers and investors.
Secretary-General of CARICOM, Edwin Carrington, said that the Region needs to change the general unfavourable investment climate for agriculture, relative to other economic sectors.
Investment in the agriculture sector, he said, is central to the achievement of the primary objective of the CARICOM’s Agricultural Policy.
The current global and regional environment, the Secretary-General said, positioned the agriculture industry to be among the higher earning investment possibilities.
While he acknowledged the market-driven investments and micro and small scale agri food sector investments in the Region, he nevertheless lamented the fact that it was not enough.
The importance of Agriculture Forum is to put into action plans for the expansion of and the improvements to secure the region’s own well being, survival and profitability.
The Forum is being held against the background of the rising cost of food on the one hand, and, on the other, the region’s efforts at addressing the decline in investment in agriculture, one of the key binding constraints in the Jagdeo Initiative.
Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, in a spontaneous presentation said while there was need to revisit some mantras such as ‘grow what we eat and eat what we grow’, some ideas of the past need to be abandoned.
Placing the current food challenge in sharp focus, Prime Minister Gonsalves said that detailed consideration was required to tackle problems such as labour and productivity, training of farm workers and organizing internal marketing systems more effectively.
Creating contacts among the major stakeholders in the regional agriculture sector is the key expectation from the two-day Investment Forum that is themed ‘Investing in our future: Agri Business is Good Business’.
Among the Guyana contingent at the conference were students from the Guyana School of Agriculture and several Ministers of Government including Minister of Agriculture, Robert Persaud.
The conference will conclude today.
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