Gonsalves (left) and Jagdeo (right)

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC):

Two Caribbean leaders have urged regional businesses to help ensure food security, as a major investment forum on agriculture got under way here on Friday.

Host President Bharrat Jagdeo and St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves said that the private sector in the region must show more interest in agriculture; rethink its business tactics; and work harder to guarantee food security.

The two-day Regional Agriculture Investment Forum is being held under the theme 'Investing in our future: Agri Business is good Business'.

Jagdeo said territories need greater interest from the private sector if agriculture is to thrive and guarantee food security.

"Our job (as regional governments) is to facilitate the private sector," he said in his keynote address, while urging that the sector be given the same focus as tourism in the development of the region's economies.

Investments

Jagdeo said Caribbean governments must focus on investments and production which, he said, were the panacea for the current food insecurity threatening the region.

In his address, Gonsalves challenged the private sector to "rethink" its historic business tactics.

"We have to revisit some of the mantras," Gonsalves said, adding that while the Caribbean had the capacity to satisfy its food needs at significantly lower costs, "we have to look at labour productivity".

While admitting the need for training of the regional labour force, reorganisation of internal marketing arrangements and better storage capacity, Gonsalves challenged Caribbean workers to abandon their laissez-faire approach to work.

"Caribbean nationals don't work hard enough," he said, adding that the region has a food challenge and not a food crisis, due to what he termed "our conceptions" of agriculture.

Jagdeo said that these conceptions have led to a significant decline in the agriculture sector over the years; limited funding and inadequate new investments in the sector; a shortfall in research and development; a fragmented and unorganised private sector; deficient risk management; inadequate transport; and lack of skilled human resources management.

Caribbean countries have organised the two-day event hoping to lure regional and international investors to fund at least 12 proposals to improve food production and security, through the establishment of mega farms in countries which have abundant but uncultivated lands, like Guyana, Suriname, Belize, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

Global food situation

Regional officials anticipate that the US$3 billion ($213 billion) food import bill will increase astronomically this year, and Caribbean Community (CARI-COM) Secretary General Edwin Carrington said the global food situation has created "a propitious moment" for a re-energised agriculture sector in the Caribbean.