The 25 by 2025 target is unachievable

May 22, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The joke on the sidelines of the Regional Agri-Investment Forum is that Guyana agreed to host this event in the midst of the rainy season. If a major flood occurs during the conference, or soon after, it will hurt the Region’s chances of attracting the investments which are needed under the Ali Initiative.
The Agri-Investment Forum which took place in Guyana is part of an attempt by the Irfaan Ali administration to reinvent the failed and flawed Jagdeo Initiative. But there is a major point of departure between the two initiatives. The Ali Initiative places greater emphasis on food security and consequently on regional trade.
However, judging from the presentations which have been made this past week, Caribbean governments are not necessarily singing from the same hymn sheet. There has been talk, for example, about the need to dismantle barriers to trade but not much about how this is going to be achieved.
Before the conference, the target was set to reduce regional food imports by 25 percent by 2025. Everyone seems to agree that this should be done but there appears to be no plan as to how it will be achieved. The region’s leaders know what should be the objective but, as with most things, do not have a plan to achieve the objective.
There has been talk about the need to improve transportation. But the private sector is not going to get involved in this area unless it sees before clear evidence of this need being driven by market demand. You cannot ask the region’s private sectors to invest in fast boats when the investors are not certain about the cargo.
The key to the Ali Initiative is the idea of linking regional food security to reducing regional food imports. This idea of linking food security to trade, however, was not the brainchild of Irfaan Ali. It should be credited to Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados and to a specific proposal from the Caricom Private Sector Organisation (CPSO) – the same private sector organisation which an obscure local grouping wants CARICOM to derecognise.
But achieving 25 by 2025 is not going to be easy if at all possible. Guyana’s Second Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has said that the region would need US$7.5B in investments in order to reduce its food import bill by 25 percent. The enormity of the investments required makes President’s Ali’s previous proposal of a Caricom Sustainability Agriculture Credit Facility laughable.
The facility provides a mere US$100M to all CARICOM states with an interest rate of 2.5 percent. This is a drop in the ocean to what is needed to revitalise agriculture and reduce the Caribbean’s food import bill by a quarter.
Under the Jagdeo Initiative, there was supposed to be created a Special Fund for the Modernisation of Regional. But that never gained any traction in a region which is notorious for its panhandling.
One of the signal failures of the Agri-Investment Forum has been the absence of bankable projects for investment. Investors have come from all over the world for this event and they have not been presented with a list of bankable projects to which they need to invest.
Much of the requirement investment to which Jagdeo alludes is required to improve infrastructure. When he was touting his mega farms idea, he had in mind lands in the Canje Basin and in the Intermediate Savannahs. One regional firm had done a feasibility study in order to invest in this mega farm project in the Basin but it changed its mind after it realised the huge infrastructural investment, which would have been needed.
The Intermediate Savannahs has a mixed record when it comes to agricultural investments. Guyanese got excited when they hear about plans to grow rice in the usually dry and scorched Intermediate Savannahs. That rice turned out to be a variety, which is not used in Guyana and produces for export. A Barbadian investor came and made the investment but has since sold his shares in the venture. On the other hand, some local investors have done a trial study, which they say proves the feasibility of growing soya in the savannahs.
The Guyana Sugar Corporation needs investment to revive sugar. Yet, little was heard from President’s Ali and Second Vice President Jagdeo about reviving sugar production. This is all proof that sugar is terminally ill in Guyana.
The bottom line is that this week’s Agri-Investment Forum was more about companies showing what they have to sell than about attracting the investment, which is needed to achieve the 25 by 2025 target. That target is not going to be reached because there is no coherent and coordinated policy.
The US$7B investments will not materialise. The Jagdeo Initiative even if reinvented as the Ali Initiative was always a dead duck.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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