Farmers knock regional governments for lack of support

Small-farmer organisations from across the Caribbean have criticised regional governments and bureaucrats for leaving them to 'fend for themselves' during a period of rising food prices and declining agricultural products.

The criticism came during the start of a two-day workshop in Castries on Tuesday to discuss the benefits of a technical assistance programme initiated by the Caribbean Farmers Network (CaFAN) and funded by the Office of Europe-Africa-Caribbean-Pacific Liaison Committee, Pest Initiative Programme (COLEACP/PIP).

COLEACP/PIP is an inter-professional organisation devoted to the ACP-EU horticultural trade.

Its global objective is to promote the horticultural trade of ACP countries and strengthen companies engaged in export, in particular, small and medium-scale growers.

Conference coordinator Jetro Greene said that Caribbean governments have placed the farming industry on the back burner, providing little support to the farming community.

He told delegates that even now, at a time of a food crisis, Caribbean leaders were only pretending to care since it has been very easy to discern that they were not really concerned.

"So what they are trying to do now is to play catch-up. There are a lot of recommendations on paper and several policy documents, but in terms of adopting any practical or implementing solutions there are not even proper financing mechanisms for farmers to produce commodities," said Greene.

"There are not even proper marketing and storage throughout most of these countries. So we in the Caribbean Farmers Network decided that it was time to act, as we can no longer trust the future of agriculture at the national and regional level in the hands of bureaucrats who jump around like chickens with their heads cut off when there is problem, and who have been pushing services over agriculture," Greene said.

The Caribbean small farmers and their representative organisations are discussing strategies for improving their quality of life.

"With support funding from the European Union, they are going to decide how the two-year technical assistance programme can be utilised to help train and generally improve the lot of farmers," Greene said.

Earlier this year, CaFAN and COLEACP officials met to develop a technical-assistance programme targeting all CaFAN members and small farmers in 12 Caribbean countries.

Greene said the project was a CaFAN initiative to "reach out and engage international partners" and to bring resources to farmers to improve their production levels and market access.

- CMC