Food for thought and….action:

Caribbean people are passionate about many things. But if I could judge my Caribbean friends, I’d safely say their greatest passion is their food. And of course, we like to rib-tickle each other whenever the conversation turns to food, declaring that we Trinis have the best food, or the Jamaicans or Barbadians could cook the best rice or peas (or is it peas and rice, to be politically correct) while my partners in Guyana swear they have the sweetest hand in the Caribbean kitchen.
All, however, agree that Caribbean food, whether in Grenada, St. Lucia, St Vincent or wherever in this region, surpasses by far the culinary dishes anywhere in the world. And of course, we must add a liberal dash of hot pepper sauce, preferably the home-made type on our meals, even on breakfast.
While the high price of food in our countries restrained us a bit into our usual buying spree of fruits, vegetables and meats, our people continued to enjoy their foods, whether it was simply vegetables and rice and a small piece of meat on the side to go with it.
Food is such a major part of our lives in the Caribbean that one of my friends who’s now holding a major job in Europe one day confessed, maybe in a moment of frustration, that she could give up her powerful job to open a restaurant and serve food, seasoned with pepper and Chadon Beni – and if you’ve never tried this pungent seasoning grown wild in the yards in Trinidad, get yourself a plant, real fast.
So it was with food in mind, that I read about next weekend’s special donor conference on agriculture that will take place in Port of Spain and I thought that, finally, finally, we seemed to be going somewhere in putting agriculture in the priority area that it so well deserves.
I know a lot of studies have been done, numerous reports on agriculture and lots of research and planning taking place in the background. What is different now, is that the Caribbean at this special conference will be sitting down with bilateral, multilateral and regional donors to let them know that the region needs the financial and technical help in pushing through a number of projects to kick-start agriculture in a sustainable way that will impact the lives of its population in valuable ways.
The formal discussions will centre on the Regional Transformation Programme for Agriculture, designed to transform the sector to become internationally competitive to aid the region in defending its domestic market while increasing its share of the international market.
It  will also focus on the Jagdeo Initiative `Strengthening Agriculture for Sustainable Development’ – from Guyanese President  Bharrat Jagdeo who has lead responsibility for Agriculture in the region.
This is a strategy to alleviate some of the binding constraints to the development of the sector to create the enabling environment for a resurgence of investment to kick-start the transformation process.
Next week’s conference on agriculture, which will be seeking close to US$300 million in funding for 53 projects is very important to all our countries, grappling with a double-whammy of dwindling agricultural output and a sky-rocketing annual food import bill of over US$3 billion.
The sector which has sustained the Caribbean for centuries is traditionally an important contributor to GDP, employment and exports and critical to issues such as poverty alleviation and food security.
However, in the last two decades, agricultural output as a percentage of GDP was reduced to less than 10 percent for about seven countries in the region; for the remainder it was greater, and for at least three countries, Belize, Guyana and Haiti, it has remained over 20 percent, according to a background document.
For nine CARICOM countries, more than 15  percent of their foreign exchange earnings from merchandise exports came from the agricultural sector and for six of those, it was over 30 percent as recently as 2003.
In terms of employment, the agricultural sector is even more critical as it accounts for greater than 15  percent of total employment in eleven countries.  In six countries, agricultural activity accounts for more than 25 percent of employment.
With the Caribbean agricultural sector facing immense challenges both nationally and in the global economic environment over the last two decades, it’s no wonder that our share in world agricultural exports declined from 2 percent in 1988 to .3 percent in 2004. 
Net agricultural trade moved from a surplus of US$ 2.9 billion in 1988 to a deficit of US$2.2 billion in 2004.
Production of sugar and bananas still dominates the agricultural sector in the region but in five of the six major sugar producers in the Caribbean, sugar cane output and exports of sugar declined between 1996 and 2004.
The reform of the EU Common Market Organization for sugar, approved in November 2005, also spells an increasing loss in market value for Caribbean sugar output.
Similarly, export volumes and values of bananas have seen sharp declines in the post 1993 period. In the Windward Islands, gross export revenues fell by a half between 1990 and 1996 and have declined persistently ever since.
Another document  ‘Agriculture in the Caribbean in 2006′ noted that despite the burgeoning tourism in the Caribbean, the net gains from the industry were far below gross receipts.
For instance, in 2005, Jamaica imported US$ 602 million, with exports amounting to only US $193 million. High levels of leakage in tourism, estimated at as much as 85 percent in the Bahamas to 50 percent in Barbados were also found.
Dominica which has a population of just over 70,000 saw its food import bill increasing from US$10 million in 1990 to US$19.2 million in 1994, an increase of over 104 percent. By 2005, the import bill reached a staggering US$165 million.
According to the report, the higher imported items were usually dairy and meat products, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, grains and grain products, vegetables and fruit products which increased both in terms of volumes and range of options.
The report also said there is a growing need for the private sector to get involved in agriculture particularly in terms of generating investment funds, prioritising Research and Development (R&D) and other development imperatives.
Apart from the few large conglomerates, such as Grace Kennedy of Jamaica, Ansa McAl and S. M. Jaleel of Trinidad, the agribusiness sector is still relatively fragmented, under-resourced and dependent on public sector programmes.
I’m not sure about the level of representation from the Caribbean’s private sector at this conference, but their involvement and their investment  in this sector is needed more than ever, given the stark and depressing statistics that were carried in the two reports.
If the private sector is thinking about the risk factor or its bottom line in making profits, well, a good business is the food business. After all, Caribbean people are big food consumers.