The Caribbean’s ‘looming’ food security storm suddenly seems more threatening · Global Voices
Agricultural land for sale in Trinidad and Tobago, 2007. Rising land prices may also be a deterrent to those considering entering the agriculture industry. Photo by <PERSON> on Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
With the Atlantic hurricane season progressively worsening over the last seven years, the Caribbean region is far too accustomed to the devastation that can — and often does — happen. Yet, there is another storm brewing, one that the World Bank had been monitoring from fairly early on in the COVID-19 pandemic. In a report entitled “Future Foodscapes: Re-imagining Agriculture in Latin America and the Caribbean,” it suggested that urgent reforms in the agricultural sector are essential to supporting the region’s recovery from the pandemic, particularly from an economic perspective.
Food insecurity is rising, both within the region and beyond. Quite apart from the effects of the pandemic, which ushered in job loss and saw usually reliable supply chains disrupted, many Caribbean citizens had already been suffering socio-economically. The annual impact of the hurricane season, which many connect to the deepening climate crisis, has not helped matters, while the conflict in Ukraine has emerged as an additional compromise to global food security, with Russia being accused of cutting off food supply chains as a war tactic.
A June 15 tweet by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) discussing the World Bank's findings on regional food security has helped remind people in the region about the urgency of the issue:
The World Bank estimates between 80-90% of all food consumed in the region is supplied externally, and only three Caribbean countries (Guyana, Belize and Haiti) produce more than 50% of their own food. – Dr <PERSON> pic.twitter.com/Iqc4weYE8C
— CDB (@Caribank) June 15, 2022
The tweet caught the attention of two regional journalists, <PERSON> and <PERSON>:
The definition of a looming storm that is now upon us in the #Caribbean https://t.co/C0N1LTtzXD
— <PERSON> (@wgibbings) June 15, 2022
Deeply upsetting. https://t.co/9UQvC4DlCi
— Soyini (@Soyinification) June 15, 2022
As part of the CDB's 52nd Annual Meeting, held in the Turks and Caicos Islands from June 1-16, African Development Bank (AfDB) President <PERSON> noted that food security is integral to Caribbean development: “Food aid cannot feed Africa. 941
Food aid cannot feed the Caribbean. Africa and the Caribbean need seeds in the ground and mechanical harvesters to harvest bountiful food produced locally.”
“Agriculture is not for poverty reduction. Agriculture is for wealth creation. Agriculture is about food and agribusiness.”
African Development Bank President @akin_adesina addressing private sector operatives on collaborating for capacity development. #CDBBOG52 pic.twitter.com/XtWoQolixs
— African Development Bank Group (@AfDB_Group) June 14, 2022
Seminars and other regional initiatives intended to attract people to the agriculture sector have thus far not made much of a dent in the region's external reliance on food; even countries that produce a decent proportion of their own food are facing challenges. Haiti's unstable sociopolitical situation and resulting economic challenges, for example, cause food security to remain a pressing concern, and in Guyana, some are choosing to skip meals in order to help cope with high food prices.
Inflation is also having a negative impact, with several Caribbean territories suffering monthly food price increases exceeding five percent since March 2021. The fact that many islands import food, both to supply the tourism industry that much of the region is reliant upon, as well as to meet local demand, means that international price increases are passed on. Healthy eating is, therefore, becoming more expensive, creating a vicious circle in terms of poverty, food access and health.
According to the third round of the CARICOM COVID-19 Food Security and Livelihoods Impact Survey, a series done by the Caribbean Community in partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), 71 percent of respondents complained that food prices were higher than usual. It is now estimated that there are as many as 2.7-2.8 million people — nearly 40 percent of the population — suffering from food insecurity in the English-speaking Caribbean, most of them from low-income households.
The surveys, which were conducted in April and June 2020, February 2021, and February 2022, began as an attempt to track the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security in the English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean. 803