Soul-searching in import-dependent Caribbean
The rise in food prices across the Caribbean, notably in Haiti where rioting resulted in deaths, has prompted some soul-searching on the region’s heavy dependency on imported food. Weaknesses in the sector are being flagged and the need to turn words into action, signalled.
Agricultural bounty of Haiti. Painting by L. Saul, Villa Créole, Port-au-Prince, Haiti 2007.
© Debra Percival
“The crisis is not about availability but of pricing,” says Dr.Chandra Madramootoo, originally from Guyana and Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at Canada’s McGill University. In an interview with us, he said that all countries of the Caribbean Community and Common market (CARICOM) have been affected by surging prices, although perhaps less so in Guyana and Belize, Guyana being a rice grower.
It is a heavy dependency on imported foodstuffs that makes the Caribbean vulnerable to price hikes. Due to transport costs, once the price of fuel rises, the price of food goes the same way. Very few CARICOM nations are now agriculturally-based. Take St Lucia, says Dr Madramootoo: thirty years ago 25-30 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was derived from agriculture. Today, tourism has taken over and this is just 5-6 per cent.
And in Haiti, Jean-Baptiste Chavannes of the broad-based peasants’ movement National Congress of the Papaye Peasant Movement (MPNKP) already sounded the alarm bells of a mounting food import bill. In an interview with The Courier in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince at the end of 2007, Chavannes said, “We import $300m of food every year. This is a catastrophe.” Up to the 1960s, Haiti was self-sufficient in food, but local production of rice, poultry and eggs has gradually been destroyed.
Liberalisation squeeze
Farming in Haiti had been beset by years of neglect, Chavannes told us. This was hastened by liberalisation in the 1980s during the years of administration by the Duvaliers and an over-reliance on imports. The final push downhill for local production was the economic embargo against Haiti, from 1991 to 1994, which cut off imports of inputs such as animal fodder needed for farming. Since then, political turmoil that has weakened the administration, the resulting lack of credit for inputs, land degradation caused by use of firewood for fuel and poor infrastructure, have all taken their toll on the sector. Fifty per cent of Haiti’s land is unsuitable for cultivation, said Chavannes.
Dr. Madramootoo says that due to high international demand, there are sporadic availability problems, particularly of chicken and rice. He says complaints are being voiced in the region over so much of Guyana’s rice crop being sold outside the region. He adds that fishing boats are also currently struggling to keep up catches due to the high cost of fuel for engines.
The upshot is that getting to grips with farming issues in the Caribbean is overdue. These include, says Dr. Madramootoo, water delivery, linkages between agriculture and other industries like tourism, low levels of private investment, overcoming the small scale of agricultural production, lack of skilled labour, transport and insurance and adding value to local products. Rum (from sugar) is one of the few agricultural products where value has been added.
Dr Madramootoo’s list of farming risks Caribbean-wide
Vagaries of the weather
Lack of skilled labour and highly qualified personnel
Weak market and transport structures
Lack of capital and insurance products for high-risk ventures
Weak linkages between agriculture and other sectors of the economy
High cost of imported agricultural inputs and energy
Weak Research & Development
Inadequate linkages between field production and agribusiness
Small size of operations
Limited value added opportunities
How to add value to primary production.
