JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Economist: Regional food plan needed

by

Radhica De Silva
1077 days ago
20220803
In this photo released by the Taiwan Legislative Yuan, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, left, speaks during a meeting with Legislative Yuan Deputy Speaker Tsai Chi-chang in Taipei, Taiwan, yesterday.

In this photo released by the Taiwan Legislative Yuan, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, left, speaks during a meeting with Legislative Yuan Deputy Speaker Tsai Chi-chang in Taipei, Taiwan, yesterday.

Taiwan Presidential Office via AP

Geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions are height­en­ing be­tween the Unit­ed States and Chi­na fol­low­ing the vis­it of US House Speak­er Nan­cy Polos­ki to Tai­wan, and this could have dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences in the Caribbean re­gion as it re­lates to food se­cu­ri­ty, says agri­cul­ture econ­o­mist Omar­dath Ma­haraj.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj said the Cari­com re­gion must be­gin mak­ing ad­just­ments in terms of food, feed, fu­el and fer­tilis­er needs.

He said coun­tries like the US and Chi­na, from which T&T im­ports food and agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts, may with­hold prod­ucts short­ly.

“Tra­di­tion­al food ex­port­ing coun­tries may re­vis­it their ex­port strate­gies and in­ter­nal poli­cies to­wards build­ing re­serves to main­tain food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty of their pop­u­la­tions. It puts Trinidad and To­ba­go, and oth­er Cari­com mem­bers—more than 18 mil­lion peo­ple, in an awk­ward and ex­posed po­si­tion,” Ma­haraj said.

He not­ed that Pelosi’s vis­it to Tai­wan must be ob­served very care­ful­ly by the de­vel­op­ing world, es­pe­cial­ly Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States in the Caribbean.

“The vis­it is an ap­par­ent vi­o­la­tion of the com­mit­ments in the three com­mu­niqués be­tween Chi­na and the USA. The com­mu­niqués played a cru­cial role in the es­tab­lish­ment of re­la­tions be­tween the coun­tries and con­tin­ue to be an es­sen­tial el­e­ment in the di­a­logue be­tween the two. These, along with the Six As­sur­ances and Tai­wan Re­la­tions Act,” Ma­haraj ex­plained.

He added: “In­ter­na­tion­al news me­dia are re­port­ing pos­si­ble provo­ca­tions which may lead to war. Chi­na slams the vis­it as ‘ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous’, with Bei­jing lead­ers con­sid­er­ing the ac­tion as ‘play­ing with fire’ amid height­ened US-Chi­na ten­sions.”

Not­ing that world peace, in­clu­sive de­vel­op­ment, glob­al lo­gis­tics and food sys­tems are al­ready volatile due to the pan­dem­ic ef­fects, Rus­sia’s in­va­sion of Ukraine and oth­er po­lit­i­cal, so­cial and eco­nom­ic strug­gles, Ma­haraj said: “A ca­su­al­ty of this threat cre­at­ed by the USA could be food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty.”

Ma­haraj said be­tween 2014-2018, Chi­na ex­port­ed al­most US$360 bil­lion in food and agri­cul­ture prod­ucts to the world.

“Food and agri­cul­ture prod­uct ex­ports rep­re­sent­ed an an­nu­al av­er­age of 3.14 per cent of to­tal Chi­nese ex­ports. Of all Chi­na’s ex­ports to Cari­com, food and agri­cul­ture prod­ucts con­sti­tute an an­nu­al av­er­age of 3.21 per cent for the same pe­ri­od or US$ 88 mil­lion,” he said.

Sim­i­lar­ly, he said the USA ex­port­ed al­most US$723 bil­lion in food and agri­cul­ture prod­ucts to the world. Food and agri­cul­ture prod­uct ex­ports rep­re­sent­ed an an­nu­al av­er­age of 9.27 per cent of to­tal Amer­i­can ex­ports.

“Of all USA’s ex­ports to Cari­com, food and agri­cul­ture prod­ucts con­sti­tute an an­nu­al av­er­age of 21.04 per cent for the same pe­ri­od or US$2.5 bil­lion,” he added.

Ma­haraj said these food and agri­cul­ture prod­ucts rep­re­sent­ed an an­nu­al av­er­age of 18.21 per cent of to­tal Cari­com im­ports or US$5.5 bil­lion.

Be­cause of this de­pen­den­cy, he said the Caribbean has to relook its poli­cies and re­think its strate­gies.

Say­ing he was al­so wor­ried about re­cent re­ports of di­min­ished im­port cov­er, Ma­haraj said re­duced for­eign rev­enue and re­serves in the face of main­tain­ing our im­port de­pen­dence is a chal­lenge.

“The po­ten­tial for in­creased food prices and less­ened quan­ti­ties on the glob­al mar­ket is gain­ing mo­men­tum with re­stric­tions, pro­duc­tion and prod­uct sourc­ing, trans­porta­tion and evolv­ing food safe­ty is­sues. While high­er prices may ease elas­tic de­mand, we de­pend on many im­port­ed, ba­sic sta­ple food prod­ucts, es­pe­cial­ly rice, fruits, veg­eta­bles, dairy prod­ucts and meats in­clud­ing seafood,” he said.

He ex­pressed hope that re­gion­al lead­ers will de­vel­op a plan at the up­com­ing Agri-In­vest­ment Fo­rum and Ex­po to be held lat­er this month.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored