Editorial | Try Agro-21, version 6.0

Jamaica has signed on to the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) plan to reduce the community’s food import bill by at least a quarter by 2025. That is only three years hence, which is not a long time. Yet, it is not obvious that the Jamaican Government possesses clear ideas of how it will contribute to the initiative. If it does, the information is not being sufficiently shared with the public.

Put another way, the Government is not doing enough to highlight the matter, or to position agriculture as a sector in which Jamaicans should be excited to participate. There is a need for a change in strategy. Maybe, as Edward Seaga did in 1983, when he attempted to give agriculture a shot in the arm and modernise the sector, Prime Minister Andrew Holness should establish a special-purpose vehicle, with an energetic czar at its helm, to spearhead the 25-in-25 project.

In going this route, there are pitfalls to be avoided. Mr Seaga’s Agro-21 initiative (named for its launch in Jamaica’s 21st year of Independence) had significant successes. It introduced Israeli technology to Jamaican farms, pioneered the mother-satellite farm concept that has been revived in recent times, and opened the US market to the export of vegetables from Jamaica.

Its oversight, however, was lax. Perhaps it was too far removed from the core agricultural sector. Further, overreach and insufficient analysis of some sub-sectors caused the Government to pump money into unfeasible projects. But worse, the administration allowed itself to be suckered by an Israeli criminal, Eli Tisona, who hid behind his Spring Plain winter vegetable farms in Jamaica, and elsewhere in the Caribbean, notably Antigua and Barbuda, to smuggle drugs into the United States. Mr Tisona went to jail in America.

SHOULD BE CONSIDERED

An Agri-21-type model, however, should be considered for several reasons. First, the matter of ramping up the region’s food production is urgent. The 15-member community has a food import bill of more than US$5 billion annually. Jamaica accounts for nearly 17 per cent of that expenditure, with an annual food bill in the region of US$1 billion.

The region’s expenditure on imported foods has risen sharply this year. It is likely to climb even higher in the face of the pandemic-induced constraints on global supply chain, which has been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resultant Western sanctions on Moscow. In normal times, Ukraine and Russia, combined, produce nearly 30 per cent of the world’s wheat and much of its seed oils. There is now only limited flow of their supplies, which have helped to drive commodity prices upwards.

For instance, at the beginning of June, despite a five per cent fallback in the previous fortnight, the World Bank’s agricultural price index was 40 per cent higher than in January 2021. The prices of maize and wheat were up 42 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively. Globally, countries are battling food inflation, worsened in many developing nations by food insecurity.

For decades, going back to the late 1970s with its Regional Food Plan, CARICOM has launched and faltered on initiatives to expand food security and slash its food import bill. But the current global situation has given new impetus to a Guyanese proposal for the region to chop 25 per cent of its food bill by 2025. Guyana has offered vast acreages of land for the project. Member states with significant surplus or idle agricultural lands are also expected to have significant roles in the scheme.

So, getting things quickly, without being hobbled by the typical bureaucracy (but transparently), is vital.

SIGNIFICANT CONCERN

Last month, Guyana hosted an agricultural investment forum to sensitise the region’s private sector about the project, as well as sharpen perspectives on what would be required to get off the ground. That was a positive development. This newspaper, however, has a significant concern. While the concept has been aired among technocrats and financiers, ordinary folks have little or no grasp of how the initiative is to unfold, or their place in it. The outline document on the initiative produced by Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali is not widely available. Neither, insofar as we are aware, is it broken down for mass consumption, notwithstanding the hope of regional leaders “to attract and expand the participation of youth and women (in agriculture) by 20 per cent by 2025”.

In Jamaica, around 200,000, or nearly 15 per cent of the island’s workforce, are employed in agriculture, fishing and forestry. Most of those workers are low-skilled, and mostly older people employing low levels of technology.

The prime minister has said that giving impetus to the regional initiative will require mobilising capital in Jamaica, and elsewhere in the region, for investment in farms and agro-processing facilities. But the people who have capital and those who are willing to take risks need to have a full picture of the available projects, potential markets and likely returns. That won’t happen if policy documents appear to be secret and under the control of taciturn bureaucrats.

Perhaps, therefore, the Government should try something different – an engaging agency that draws attention to a sector that does not often see itself in neon, on the marquee, as was achieved with Agro-21.