At IICA Executive Committee meeting, Minister of Agriculture of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines says his country is on the brink of food insecurity in the wake of devastation caused by natural disasters

San Jose, 29 July 2024 (IICA). “Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is on the brink of food insecurity”, said the Minister of Agriculture of that island nation, Saboto Caesar, during the 2024 session of the Executive Committee of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA). During the meeting, participants were presented with details of the climate emergency that several Caribbean nations are experiencing due to the devastation caused by Hurricane Beryl at the beginning of July.
 
Speaking via video link to a dozen ministers of agriculture in the Americas and other senior sector officials, Caesar explained that the current complex agrifood situation in his country had been exacerbated by a series of extreme events over the past five years.
 
“Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is on the brink of food insecurity, on average it has been hit by one natural disaster every year for the past five years, which has disrupted every food chain. We have experienced COVID-19, 32 volcanic eruptions, severe droughts, and hurricanes”, the minister pointed out.
 
The impact of Hurricane Beryl led to the loss of 98 percent of banana and plantain production and affected a series of other agricultural value chains. “The lobster and fisheries chain was totally destroyed, the base of the fisheries sector was impacted, ninety-five percent of vessels were affected, a large percentage of fisherfolk and producers have been displaced”, he added.
 
“We asked Parliament for help, to continue softening the impact. We aim to provide assistance and support in the form of direct income for producers for the next 23 months. Our intention is to increase production and productivity, so our production systems are fully operational by the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025”, he remarked.
 
The Minister of Agriculture of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines asked IICA and its Member States to provide the technical assistance needed to rebuild the agriculture and fisheries sector.
 
“We need technical support, the assistance of the IICA Member States for our recovery, for a detailed assessment of the impacts on ecosystems, seeds, assistance with fertilizers, support from technical personnel, technologies to help us in the reconstruction process. IICA has always been a friend and a partner whenever we have needed it, we are a developing island state and we want to be at the forefront in the fight against climate change”, Caesar said.
 
Other countries such as Grenada, Jamaica and Barbados, which also suffered the onslaught of Hurricane Beryl, described the difficult situation they are experiencing due to their vulnerability to extreme weather events, which have devastated agriculture, destroying infrastructure and crops.
 
“Ninety percent of the nutmeg has been damaged and ninety percent of the cacao, which are the main exports. Eighty percent of the country's economic crops have been damaged, in the livestock system many animals were lost - cattle, pigs, poultry, there is a shortage of food, fruits and vegetables”, said the Minister of Agriculture of Grenada, Lennox Andrews.
 
“Agriculture has been strongly impacted. We asked Congress for help with financial income for our producers, 400 dollars per month for the next few months. I hope that support is forthcoming, and special assistance from IICA, for food, equipment, machinery to clean up the fields, help with the labor needed”, he added.
 
Jamaica’s Minister, Floyd Green, pointed out that seventy percent of harvests were damaged  - crops that are important for the country’s food security, such as bananas, cassava, fruits and others ­- and the livestock and fisheries subsectors were also seriously affected.
 
“Complete structures have been lost, in addition to homes and poultry flocks. There is a lot of damage to livestock production; it is a major blow for our agricultural system. We have to do something special for them; we need greenhouses that are key to production. There are no structures, but we have resilient producers and they will continue to farm. We need everyone’s help to rebuild the sector”, Green stated.
 
Michael James, Chief Agricultural Officer of Barbados, explained that his nation experienced losses in its banana and plantain crops, and requested training in damage assessment, and other areas such as innovation with gene banks, access to technologies, and early warning systems.
 
Roadmap for recovery
 
At the meeting of the IICA Executive Committee, held in San José, Costa Rica, the Institute’s Member States showed their solidarity with the Caribbean nations and offered immediate assistance to help the sector recover.
 
“You can count on the support of Brazil. We place at your disposal the resources of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), which can help you with its expertise and experience in tropical agriculture, so you can reconstruct soils that are washed away in those kinds of situations”, said Roberto Perosa, Secretary for Trade and International Relations at Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock.
 
“Every country has experienced some sort of contingency of this nature. We place our National Institute of Forestry, Agricultural and Livestock Research at your disposal, and we will provide support on the seed issue”, announced Lourdes Cruz, General Coordinator of International Affairs at Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
 
IICA presented a roadmap for mitigation, rehabilitation and adaptation to agricultural disasters in the Caribbean countries, designed, among other things, to build greater capacity to restore food production, strengthen and develop technical capabilities for restoring subsistence systems, and improve the resilience of farming communities to disasters and climate change.
 
The aim will also be to improve and apply methodologies for the rapid assessment of damage and losses, in the areas of technology, agricultural systems and tools, seed banks, and mobile nurseries.
 
In addition to these efforts, there is a proposal to create the Hemispheric Fund for Agricultural Resilience and Sustainability in the Americas, which would provide financial and technical support to the countries of the region for the development and implementation of strategies that strengthen the resilience and sustainability of their agricultural systems, affected ever more frequently by extreme weather events.
 
“The Caribbean is very close; we are going to help. We are in a position to make an immediate contribution of USD 300,000 to help some of the affected countries. We need a change in attitude, and to think about developing strategies in which resilience and rural sustainability are key elements”, said the Director General of IICA, Manuel Otero.
 
“We must learn from all these situations. We need increasingly resilient, sustainable agriculture, with farmers in rural areas who produce more food, more abundant and nutritious food. The Caribbean has to strengthen its early warning system, have a seed bank, mobile nurseries, an insurance program, technology, training and damage assessment”, he concluded.

More information:
Institutional Communication Division.
comunicacion.institucional@iica.int