Weir highlights regional agricultural collaboration at UN summit

Barbados may not be on track to achieving all of the United Nations 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030 but the country is  partnering with its CARICOM neighbours to improve the region’s food security and ensure its citizens have access to nutritious food.

This assurance was delivered by Minister of Agriculture Indar Weir in his address to a 2022 United Nations Science Summit General Assembly activity held via Zoom on  Monday.

Weir spoke about CARICOM’s commitment to reducing the Caribbean’s food import bill by 25 per cent by 2025 and other initiatives Barbados was pursuing with neighbouring islands to boost agriculture production.

He said the aim of these programmes was “to achieve a sustainable development goal to make sure that no person is without food within the region but, at the same time, provide an opportunity for farmers within this region to be enfranchised”.

“This goal we are working towards with a number of projects taking place right across the CARICOM region. We have signed the St Barnabas Accord where Barbados and Guayana would be supplying food to a food terminal that would be established in Barbados to be able to give us an opportunity to do storage to capacity that is required for us to be able to feed the CARICOM region and export beyond the region,” he said

“We are also looking at contemporary processing machinery that would allow us to package, dice and prepare in commercial quantities and also for home domestic consumption from that food terminal that would be distributed to supermarkets, restaurants and the tourism sector.

“The food terminal in Barbados would also allow us to be able to take produce from Guyana and other CARICOM countries. We would also leverage or close relationship with Roraima, which is north Brazil close to the border at Guyana, for us to be able to import all of the carcasses we need to produce beef; establish a state-of-the-art abattoir in Barbados to be able to train butchers in cutting specialty cuts for consumption, thus allowing us to be able to produce them within the region, and then package and ship throughout CARICOM and beyond CARICOM – giving us a fair chance at reducing the food import bill for meat, beef, pork and lamb.”

The 17 SDGs speak to the reduction of poverty, hunger, inequalities and improving health, education, gender equality and work conditions. They also focus on innovation, infrastructure, climate change, peace and justice and responsible consumption and production.

The summit, which started September 13 and goes until September 30, features several activities in which global leaders, experts and ministerial officials discuss the sustainability of their country’s sectors and what progress they are making towards attaining the SDGs.

The minister was speaking during a session on Food Self-Sufficiency for Resilient Development and Economic Growth in Small Island Developing States.

Weir added that millions of dollars were spent regionally to import New Zealand lamb with Barbados alone spending $14 million annually on the meat.

He stated that Barbados and Guyana were collaborating on an initiative to increase the Barbados indigenos Blackbelly sheep population which included crossing with another breed.

The minister said the carcasses would be packaged at the food terminal and sold within the tourism sector in Barbados and other CARICOM countries. This would provide employment opportunities in butchery, farming and processing.

He added that Barbados was also looking to import corn and soya from Guyana and Brazil and establish a processing plant in Barbados to provide grain throughout the region at cheaper price than what is now available on the international market.

He told the session that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine had placed a lot of strain on regional livestock industries as the cost of primary inputs of feed had substantially increased.

He suggested that another feed mill in Barbados would increase competitiveness which would drive feed prices down.

During his presentation, the agriculture minister also said the region was affected by climatic conditions such as prolonged drought and flooding during excessive rainfall which both had a negative impact on crop production.

He also noted the importance of making agriculture more technologically-driven, embracing hydroponics and aquaculture systems. (SZB)