Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

The Caribbean could face a sharp in­crease in food prices with­in the next three months, with the im­pact like­ly to reach the re­gion soon­er than ex­pect­ed, ac­cord­ing to Pro­fes­sor Wayne Gan­pat.

The for­mer Dean of the Fac­ul­ty of Food and Agri­cul­ture at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies warned that the re­gion has been re­ceiv­ing warn­ing signs since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, cau­tion­ing that a po­ten­tial­ly cat­a­stroph­ic food cri­sis could be on the hori­zon.

Since the pan­dem­ic, sev­er­al geopo­lit­i­cal shocks—in­clud­ing the Rus­sia-Ukraine con­flict, the war in Gaza, and the con­flict in­volv­ing Iran—have dri­ven food prices up­wards.

“We are faced with the four Fs. Fu­el in­creas­es, which is go­ing to im­pact food for hu­mans, feed for live­stock, and fer­tilis­ers in a big way as a key com­po­nent of agri­cul­ture,” Gan­pat said.

He added that a “hand­ful of gro­cery chains” in the re­gion hold the key to food im­por­ta­tion for the Caribbean, and that gov­ern­ments must en­gage with them to chart a path to­wards re­gion­al food se­cu­ri­ty.

Gan­pat al­so in­sists that the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) learnt valu­able lessons from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic; how­ev­er, im­ple­men­ta­tion has lagged.

He said, “The re­gion has a good plan for food se­cu­ri­ty in the re­gion. It’s just that the re­gion moves slow. It hasn’t been ex­e­cut­ed. It hasn’t been ac­tioned.”

He in­sists that the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) learned valu­able lessons from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic; how­ev­er, im­ple­men­ta­tion has lagged. He said, “The re­gion has a good plan for food se­cu­ri­ty in the re­gion. It’s just that the re­gion moves slow. It hasn’t been ex­e­cut­ed. It hasn’t been ac­tioned.”

Gro­ceries, Gov­ern­ments Must Talk

The re­gion’s food im­port bill stands at ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$7 bil­lion. Among the most im­port-de­pen­dent na­tions are St Kitts and Nevis (95 per cent), The Ba­hamas and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da (92 per cent), and Bar­ba­dos and Trinidad and To­ba­go (85–87 per cent), all of which are heav­i­ly re­liant on im­ports.

The least de­pen­dent in­clude Haiti (22 per cent) and Guyana (24 per cent), due to sig­nif­i­cant agri­cul­tur­al land and do­mes­tic pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty.

Gan­pat said, “Food is im­port­ed across the re­gion by just a hand­ful, you can prob­a­bly count them on one hand. They con­trol all the food that we get, where we get it, how much we get, where it comes from, and the qual­i­ty. They con­trol all of that. That’s their bot­tom line. That’s their busi­ness.”

Gan­pat added that any ef­fort to re­duce the re­gion’s food im­port bill must in­volve col­lab­o­ra­tion with the own­ers of ma­jor gro­cery chains. He fur­ther stat­ed, “It needs a con­ver­sa­tion with gov­ern­ments at the re­gion­al lev­el, at the na­tion­al lev­el, to re­al­ly bring them on board to see the is­sues that we are hav­ing, and what we are putting in the mar­ket­place, what we are of­fer­ing peo­ple. Are we of­fer­ing peo­ple more of what they need, or more of what they want? We need to bring them on board.”

He said that while such en­gage­ment may be tak­ing place at a mi­cro lev­el, a broad­er, co­or­di­nat­ed ef­fort is re­quired.

Ac­cord­ing to the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion, key dri­vers of the high food im­port bill in­clude the tourism sec­tor and raw ma­te­ri­als for the re­gion’s food pro­cess­ing in­dus­try, with meats, an­i­mal feed, ce­re­als, and fin­ished goods com­pris­ing the bulk of im­ports.

In De­fence of Lo­cal Farm­ers

In re­sponse to the grow­ing food im­port bill, Cari­com launched the “25 by 25 Ini­tia­tive”, which aims to re­duce the re­gion’s 2019 food im­port lev­els by 25 per cent by 2025. The ini­tia­tive has since been ex­tend­ed to 2030.

Gan­pat main­tains that with greater in­vest­ment, farm­ers across the re­gion can sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­tribute to in­creas­ing lo­cal food pro­duc­tion.

He stat­ed, “A huge re­gion­al ef­fort is need­ed to try to re­al­ly let them [large gro­cery chains] see the big­ger pic­ture, that it’s the ben­e­fit of every­body to help farm­ers across the re­gion grow more food, grow the food that we eat, that we have more, we in­crease our food se­cu­ri­ty, but al­so the food sov­er­eign­ty, grow the things that we eat and eat what we grow, not to have our shelves at­trac­tive to all the things that peo­ple just take off the shelves that are from for­eign. We’re sup­port­ing for­eign economies at the ex­pense of our lo­cal farm­ers. One thing right now, farm­ers could pro­duce. They al­ways say farm­ers can’t pro­duce, and the qual­i­ty is low, but that’s not true.”

He said it is im­por­tant that farm­ers are pro­vid­ed with ac­cess to land and fa­cil­i­ties to ex­pand pro­duc­tion.

Ris­ing Food Prices Ahead

As of this month, the World Food Pro­gramme (WFP) and the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion (FAO) have warned of sig­nif­i­cant in­creas­es in glob­al food and fu­el prices dri­ven by es­ca­lat­ing con­flict in the Mid­dle East.

While the re­port high­light­ed im­pacts on Africa and Asia, Gan­pat said the Caribbean should al­so pre­pare for high­er prices, be­gin­ning with stronger re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion.

Gan­pat ex­plained, “The pres­i­dent of Guyana was here last week­end. In his speech, he was com­plain­ing about how we have too many re­stric­tions of trade be­tween Guyana and the rest of the re­gion. He said, for the life of him, he couldn’t un­der­stand why he couldn’t get two con­tain­ers of limes in­to Trinidad. That has to do with, at the re­gion­al lev­el, san­i­tary and phy­tosan­i­tary re­stric­tions are bar­ri­ers, non-tar­iff bar­ri­ers, and coun­tries use them con­ve­nient­ly to keep prod­ucts out of their mouth. We need to fix that. We need to low­er those bar­ri­ers so that we could have food around the re­gion com­ing. If Guyana is go­ing to be our source of food, we have to have them on board to have food com­ing across the re­gion.”

He al­so called for greater sup­port for young farm­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go, not­ing that the coun­try’s agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor is age­ing.

Make Bet­ter Choic­es

Gan­pat al­so urged house­holds to make more in­formed choic­es when shop­ping for gro­ceries.

He stat­ed, “There’s a guid­ing prin­ci­ple I want to share. It’s the five, four, three, two, one that peo­ple may want to con­sid­er. When you go to your gro­cery, you choose five veg­eta­bles, four fruits, three pro­teins, two car­bo­hy­drate sources, sta­ples, and the one is re­al­ly a com­fort food. You could use it as a guid­ing prin­ci­ple so that you meet the needs of your fam­i­ly, the nu­tri­tion­al needs. You know what food se­cu­ri­ty is? It’s about food and nu­tri­tion, so you meet the nu­tri­tion­al needs of your fam­i­ly.”

He al­so en­cour­aged con­sumers to choose lo­cal­ly pro­duced items over im­port­ed goods. “Lo­cal is fresh­er; it’s more nu­tri­tious,” Gan­pat stat­ed.

Gan­pat warned that with­out ur­gent col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween gov­ern­ments, re­tail­ers, and farm­ers, the re­gion will re­main vul­ner­a­ble to ex­ter­nal shocks. He cau­tioned that de­lays in de­ci­sion-mak­ing could wors­en the im­pact of ris­ing prices on house­holds.

He urged pol­i­cy­mak­ers to move be­yond dis­cus­sion and im­ple­ment ex­ist­ing plans, stress­ing that strength­en­ing re­gion­al pro­duc­tion and trade is crit­i­cal to en­sur­ing sta­ble food sup­plies and pro­tect­ing Caribbean con­sumers in the months ahead.