CARICOM is a glorified talk-shop

May 23, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – Is the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) for real? The Outcome Statement of the just concluded Agri-Investment Forum, held in Guyana, mentions the word “investment” thrice, and all three times it is to refer to the name of the conference.
The length of the Statement, including the heading is 929 words. For a conference dealing with investment, there is nothing in the Statement as to how the Region will attract the US$7.5B in investment which Jagdeo says it needs.
This is CARICOM for you. A glorified talk-shop if ever there was one.
Guyana, however, needs CARICOM. It is a vital market which can be tapped for Guyana’s overpriced agricultural produce. High-extra regional tariffs allow local commodities, such as rice and sugar, market penetration.
The good news for Guyana is that global food prices are increasing. According to the Outcome Statement, the Forum took the opportunity to discuss the current situation regarded high prices of imported food, the shortage of and increased prices of fertilisers and other agricultural inputs and the problems affecting transport – presumably the difficulties of intra-regional food transportation.
The leaders agreed to have the quasi-Cabinet responsible for transportation complete a “proposal for establishing adequate and sustainable regional transportation, after consultation with the Caribbean private sector, the international donor community and multilateral development agencies.” This proposal was mandated to be finished in time for the July summit of regional leaders.
Given the short timeline, it will be interesting to see how much can be achieved in the just over one month. The leaders may have set themselves an impossible timeline.
Even more disturbing is that this proposal is not likely to be market driven. If there was indeed a viable market for increasing intra-regional food trade, the private sector would already have jumped on board. Having politically driven investments in regional transport is a recipe for failure.
The limited trade in agricultural produce taking place at present is done by the private sector. There is therefore no reason to believe that simply coming up with a plan will automatically bring immediate results to address rising food inflation and rising input costs to the agricultural sector.
The most important development arising out of the Forum is the recommendation that a Special Committee “prepare proposals, with time-bound deadlines, for eliminating trade barriers. The Forum urged that a Special Committee should be convened by the Minister in the quasi-Cabinet responsible for the Caribbean Single Market and Economy, and its proposals for implementation should be presented at a Special Meeting of Heads of Government in the third quarter of 2022.”
The Forum however can only recommend. Its decisions are not binding on regional leaders and would have to be endorsed by a Special Heads of Government meeting due to be held after September.
There is going to be opposition to any proposals arising out of this Committee. The assumption that much of these barriers are unjustified is false. However, it is likely to be argued, with some justification, that most of the barriers are essential to protecting the Region’s food system. Also, many of the barriers are also due to vested commercial and economic interests and it is not going to be easy to overcome these.
But even if non-tariff barriers were to be toppled overnight, the region does not have the capacity to meet its food needs in the short or even medium term. Food production in the small islands is too limited to satisfy regional food demand or to even substitute for 25 percent of regional food imports. And the larger countries like Guyana have problems in even filling a container of any single non-traditional agricultural product.
President Ali has been talking up about some container terminal which is being developed in Barbados. This ostensibly is to help encourage agricultural trade between the two countries.
One of the big items in demand in Barbados’ tourist industry is pineapples. But it is almost certain that Guyana cannot consistently fill orders for a container of pineapples per week to send to Barbados. Another fruit is watermelons. But how many containers of watermelons can be filled per week to send to Barbados?
As much, therefore, as Guyana wishes to present itself as the breadbasket of the Caribbean, it does have the food production capacity to satisfy regional demand. Merely dismantling the barriers, therefore, is not a sufficient condition for increasing food exports.
The problem which Guyana faces is not markets. Large markets exist in the United States and Canada where the bulk of our diaspora reside. But Guyana cannot produce in the quantities which large food importers demand.
The leaders present in Georgetown were said to have welcomed the agricultural development plan Advancing the CARICOM Agri-Food Systems Agenda: Prioritising Food and Nutrition Security and the 25 by 2025 Plan which was presented by President Irfaan Ali of Guyana, at the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM in March 2022.
The Government of Guyana is positioning Guyana to become the breadbasket of the Caribbean, and it has presented to Caricom a regional plan for advancing regional agriculture. But the plan remains a secret; it has not yet been made public.
A major disconnect exists, therefore, between the political directorate in Guyana and the local agricultural sector. The farmers and producers are not privy to the details of this plan. It makes you wonder just who is advising the government when it comes to agriculture.
(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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