Decision taken at just-ended 8th CARICOM-Cuba Summit held in Barbados

Caribbean Community (CARICOM) governments have allowed Cuba to join a special inter-governmental task force on agriculture.

The task force is mandated to come up with strategies to reduce CARICOM’s US$6-billion annual import bill comprising food and related products from the United States, Canada and other western nations. The decision was taken after the two sides met at the Eighth CARICOM-Cuba Summit, held in Bridgetown, Barbados earlier this week.

The summit was held to observe 50 years of unbroken diplomatic relations between the regional bloc and the communist led Cuba.

CARICOM, in a statement, reported that Cuba had accepted its offer to become a task force member and its participation is a boost, particularly to the technological aspects of its regional initiative to become food secure and reduce dependence on imports from western and other nations.

The statement explained that, “closer collaboration with Cuba in the area of agriculture will include the establishment of a food terminal to provide a consistent supply of food items to Cuba. The task force on food production and food security was established to propel the region’s thrust towards reducing its food import bill by 25 per cent by 2025,” while hailing Cuba’s coming on board.

Attendance at the summit

The summit was attended by at least eight heads of government of the region while the Cuban delegation was led by President Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermudez.

CARICOM Chairman and President of the Republic of Suriname, Chandrikapersad Santokhi said the region’s relations with Cuba are of special significance to CARICOM noting that this is one reason why Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados decided to end Cuba’s diplomatic isolation in the hemisphere by establishing relations back in 1972.

According to him, “the signing on 8 December 1972, of the agreement establishing diplomatic ties with Cuba, was a bold and unprecedented undertaking, which sent a statement to the world that Cuba is integral and vital to the mutual advancement of the Caribbean”.

He added: “And, since the signing, we have experienced consistent regular dialogue and steady strengthening of those friendly ties. Many developments have tried and tested the fortitude and solidarity of our CARICOM-Cuba relationship.  Yet, the community has never deviated from our principled position.”

Food security and sufficiency

Meanwhile, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is highlighting that of the 15 nations, only Guyana, neighboring Suriname and Belize produce more than 50 per cent of their own food needs, taking advantage of their larger land masses compared to the smaller island nations like Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados and those in the Eastern Caribbean.

Some nations, like The Bahamas, even import cucumbers from nearly Florida, a development leaders have said is unacceptable. Worried now that the food bill is spiraling out of control at a time when prices are skyrocketing globally, governments in the past two years launched the special task force mandated to increase regional production and reduce imports by encouraging consumption of home grown foods instead of those imported from the US, Canada, the UK and New Zealand among others.

Efforts to ramp up food production and reduce imports in the Caribbean have been ongoing for decades but some of the more progressive governments and agricultural activists say they get serious pushback from entrenched business interests whenever they attempt to change the narrative.

For example, a concerted effort to reduce the amount of frozen chicken Eastern Caribbean nations were buying, ran into problems because the main importer was a key financier for some of the governing parties, undermining plans to ramp up local production.