Reviving Agriculture in the CARICOM Region

By reimagining value chains, employing young adult populations, and instituting resilient farming practices, the CARICOM region is poised for a paradigm shift in the agricultural sector, reviving farmers’ livelihoods, and developing sustainable food systems across the Caribbean.

In 2020, CARICOM revealed its “25 in 5” plan to reduce the region’s $5 billion food import bill by 25% over the next five years. But, as the attention turns to domestic agriculture systems, two existential challenges become apparent: climate change and food insecurity.

Until the 1960s, the agriculture sector was predominantly the economic driver for the Caribbean and its 44.4 million population. In the last five decades, however, the industry has been constantly challenged by the out-migration of farmers to the growing tourism and services industry, disasters and price volatility, overexploitation of natural resources, inadequate skills and entrepreneurship among farmers, trade barriers, and much more. Climate change and COVID-19 have further exposed the fragility of existing food systems in the region. When ports close—be it from a storm or a pandemic—these countries are cut off from their primary food supply, imports. In the case of the Caribbean, where productivity and production are relatively low, almost 80% of food is imported. A large food import bill also carries an undesirable health dimension as a high proportion of this imported food is in calorie-dense, high-fat, and high-sweetener processed form. According to the Panorama of Food and Nutritional Security 2019 report, both obesity, and malnutrition levels are on the rise. Adult obesity has tripled since 1975 in many regions, and the Caribbean has not been exempted.

The agri-food sector is also tightly linked to tourism in the Caribbean with the latter being a key buyer. Tourism in Caribbean countries accounts for 50% of the total GDP contribution of several member states, and some even more. However, today the linkages between the two sectors suffer from poor infrastructure, information asymmetry, underdeveloped value-chains, and cash-flow constraints, among other limitations. 

The changing climate and increasing droughts, floods, and sea-level rise are further placing growing pressure on the environmental carrying capacity and productivity of natural resources like soil and water on which agriculture depends. In addition, changes in temperature and humidity have increased the vulnerability of agricultural systems to the increased incidence of invasive crops and pests. According to research published in Nature Climate Change – which looked at data from 1961 to 2020 – global agricultural productivity has declined by about 21% in the last 60-years because of climate change, while the decrease was most pronounced in Africa (30%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (26%). 

Way Forward 

The technical policies and solutions, stimulating Foreign Direct Investment, reducing inter-regional trade barriers, improving climate investment, and leveraging agriculture-tourism synergies are crucial to lay out the pathway to combating these challenges. However, the determinant of their success equally lies at the farm level, reviving agriculture, making farming a sought-after profession integrating it with digital technology, especially for the youth. The current state of Caribbean smallholder farming—inadequate compensation, a dwindling farmer population, and an undignified public perception—is entrenched in the region’s history of colonialism and slavery. But, the pressing threat of climate change, efforts to reduce the food import bill, and a large population of unemployed youth make the CARICOM region primed for change. 

 

Keith Agoada, CEO of Producers Market, shared their approach with us and why there is great potential for an agricultural systems transformation right now. He describes digital technology and youth as the drivers of change.

“We are trying to shift the culture to make farming enticing, profitable, and engaged with local communities—there needs to be a whole cultural shift, and I think digital technology is at the center of that. You have all the young people on smartphones, Instagram, Facebook, so this opportunity to connect markets, make agriculture attractive and digitally integrated is this major opportunity and ultimately supporting these existing small farmers and making it more profitable, inspiring new farmers to come in as well.”

Transparency and storytelling are at the heart of Producers Market’s approach to disrupting existing agricultural value chains. Through aggregated digital marketing, digitized transactions, and supply chain traceability, their platform creates market linkages connecting farmers and producers directly to markets, eliminating the middleman and returning greater profits to the farmers. Reconceiving traditional models empowers farmers to make their own choices through supply chain optionality. Farmers will have a consistent and reliable source of income to support their families. Agoada added,

“Contrary to popular belief, improving farmer livelihoods does not have to raise costs at the consumer end. High-quality products backed by story-driven marketing—which consumers are more likely to buy into and support—can reach price parity with existing organic and fair-trade products.”

Agoada believes that the youth are an untapped sector that can be contracted to facilitate the digitalization of farmers’ business. His vision of an “agripreneur” network can engage the many tech-literate unemployed young peoples’, drawing them to the agricultural industry and growing it into a sought-after profession. 

Another initiative addressing the microeconomic issues of youth unemployment and agricultural under-employment is taken by Alpha Sennon’s WHYFARM (We Help You-th Farm). The creative trailblazer is reinventing the language of agriculture with words like agricreativity, agricool, agventure, ricesponsible in his Agri-Edu-Tainment tools of comics, poetry, drama – all around the world’s first Food and Nutrition superhero, AGRIman and his sidekick, PhotosyntheSista to promote agriculture among the youth. 

In collaboration with the Agriculture Alliance of the Caribbean (AACARI), Producers Market is developing a pilot project with 500 farmers in the Bahamas to scale this market linkage concept and support small to medium scale agricultural enterprises.

Errington Thompson, President of AACARI, shared a current undertaking in the Bahamas, “Mentoring Through Agriculture.”

“In this pilot, being launched with young people in disadvantaged situations and incarcerated youth, we take a four-pronged approach. We want to utilize our experience in agriculture to help them to develop a farm. We want to give them skills, teach them how to make advances in agriculture, and pay them to provide them with a start. Mentors will guide them and teach them various life skills, so they are set up for success in their futures, be it agriculture or elsewhere”.

Programs like these will be the catalyst for youth empowerment and a culture shift around agriculture.  Kelly Witkowski, who leads the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA)’s Climate Change, and Natural Resources Program emphasized, “the agriculture sector needs to play a stronger role in the national and regional climate response processes to advocate for the unique needs of the sector – involving youth is critical for this.”  Supported by the Green Climate Fund and with leadership from IICA, nine CARICOM countries have recently come together to implement a readiness project that will strengthen the foundation for a more climate-responsive agriculture sector in the region.  This includes developing vocational standards for climate-smart agriculture to developing capacity in the region´s youth and strengthening data and information to inform investment and analyze the barriers limiting private sector investment in agriculture resilience and low emissions development.  

Pairing this model with a shift in sustainable farming practices, growing crops best suited to the land and more resistant to climate change will tackle the dual crisis of climate change and food insecurity. The increasing frequency and intensity of droughts that climate change is causing in the region are already decreasing yields and causing heat stress in livestock.  Chaney St. Martin, a water and soil specialist at IICA, emphasized the need for a context specific approach.

“Each country has different contexts and needs. As much as possible shifts to sustainable farming practices and systems should be informed by evidence-based research, which focuses not only on soil and water as production inputs but also natural capital for responding to climate change. For this reason, the focus must be placed on sustainable land and soil management strategies, maintaining and improving soil health through the incorporation of organic matter, integrated soil fertility management and biodiversity conservation, as well as implementing climate-resilient water security practices and systems.”

Cover photo credit: Prospera Foods, a Producers Market member