(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana)  The CARICOM Agriculture Investment Forum got underway with calls for Caribbean governments to create a better environment for investors and bankers, and the private sector in general, to inject the necessary resources to boost the agriculture industry and ensure food security in the Region.

Delivering the keynote address this morning (6 June 2008) to a packed auditorium at the Guyana International Conference Centre (GICC) H.E. President Bharrat Jagdeo, Lead Head of State with Responsibility for Agriculture charged governments to create a better climate for agriculture and to show interest in the industry at the highest level.

“We have work to do at the level of governments…,” he said.

While he acknowledged that the capacity to address impediments to agriculture might be limited, he nevertheless stressed the need for governments to respond by relying on each other and through coordinated action.

Among the obligations of Regional governments that President Jagdeo pointed to was the necessity for placing agriculture on the same level and according it the same fiscal measures and concessions as other sectors in the economy. Expressing pleasure at the attendance of bankers and farmers at the Forum, President Jagdeo pointed out that if governments were to take that approach, they would send a strong signal to the investors that “we are really serious about the agriculture sector’.

“We need to send the right signals,” he stressed.

The unique risks involved in the agriculture sector must also be addressed, the President said.

In impromptu remarks, Dr The Hon. Ralph Gonsalves reiterated the role of Governments and said the partnership with the private sector must be a conducted in a creative manner.

He noted that while there was need to revisit some mantras such as `grow what we eat and eat what we grow’, some ideas of the past needed to be jettisoned.

“We must do things better at the State-side as well as on the private sector side. We have to get serious about trying to feed out people in the context of the wellness revolution and to do it fairly cheaply, and this conference is a good start,” he said.

Placing the current food challenge in sharp focus, Prime Minister Gonsalves said detailed consideration was required to tackle problems such as labour and productivity, training of farm workers and organizing internal marketing systems more effectively.

Creating contacts among the major stakeholders in the regional agriculture sector is the key expectation from the two-day Investment Forum that is themed `Investing our future: Agric Business is Good Businsess’.

More than 150 persons, including Ministers of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), investors, multilateral financial institutions and commercial bankers and other officials, are participating in the event.

More than 20 projects ranging from food production to ethanol production are to be presented to the Forum.

Among the topics to be discussed are `Global and Regional Trends Driving Agri Business and the requirements for New and Different Investments’ and `The Role of Agriculture in Expanding the Tourism Experience’.

Success stories from producers and processors will also be presented.

Investment in agriculture was one of nine key binding constraints identified under the Jagdeo Initiative. The Jagdeo Initiative `Strengthening Agriculture for Sustainable Development’ is a strategy to alleviate some of the binding constraints to the development of the sector and to create the enabling environment which will encourage a resurgence of investment in agriculture thus facilitating the transformation process.

Contact:  piu@caricom.org