(CARICOM, Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater, Georgetown, Guyana)  First of all, I want to welcome every one of you, who have travelled from across the Region and further afield, particularly the first time visitors to the Nature Isle. I want to assure you that you will meet the most hospitable and friendly people on earth and you will certainly have a great, exciting encounter with nature at its best, here in Dominica.

We are here today, to mark the beginning of this all important tenth Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA) and the Joint Opening Ceremony of the Climate Change and Science and Technology Workshop.

The fact that this is the tenth CWA implies that we have made significant progress in ensuring that the bonds that keep us together at the governmental and institutional levels, albeit through difficult challenges, have grown stronger.

We are therefore celebrating the achievements over the past nine years; however let us to some extent, remain reticent about the present state of agriculture and the challenges it is currently experiencing across the region.

The Agriculture Sector is vitally important in the gamut of economic and social interactions of the Region’s people. We must therefore examine more closely, the interactions of climate change and the key factors of agricultural production, the rural way of life, as well as the threats to coastal communities and infrastructure investments.

We need to take stock of the probable negative impacts that climate change will have in the agriculture of the future. It has been widely reported that the negative impacts, such as drought, intense rainfall, flooding and sea level rise etc. will cost the English speaking Caribbean 5 % of GDP annually. Here in Dominica, this is already being felt as government must respond to different forms of natural disasters each year. Just recently, we were placed under a tropical storm warning but thank God, we were spared any damage. Only to find ourselves two weeks later having to respond to major flooding along the west coast, without warning, from some band of intense rain, I am told was associated to the passage of Tropical Storm Ophelia. I don’t think there is anyone in the affected communities alive today, who have witnessed similar flooding before. Therefore, we can conclude with a high degree of certainty that the climate is changing and that its adverse effects are taking a heavy toll on our national budget. We estimate that the recent flooding will cost the Treasury of Dominica millions of dollars, in addition to costs borne out by private individuals and institutions.

My dear compatriots, visitors and friends alike, let us not go tinkering around with scientific debates about the adequacies or inadequacies of the technologies and sciences applied to climate change, but rather, let us focus on the imperatives of transforming agriculture and our way of life, with a view to build resilience in our natural environments and economies to the ever present negatives effects of climate change, if not for us then certainly, for future generations to come.

In the context of agriculture, I think we in the Caribbean have a well established history of convening very successful workshops. Let me say this however, this year’s Caribbean Week of Agriculture should be judged not by the declarations that we expect will come out of it, but rather it should be judged by the practical, fundable action plans and a schedule of major milestones that are implemented before the next Caribbean Week of Agriculture.

I say these things so that we remind ourselves of a number of initiatives that are approved by the CARICOM Heads of Government, but somewhat seem to fade into the background once the Heads look the other way. I am thinking of the Jagdeo Agriculture Initiative (JAI), approved by the Conference in 2006. This initiative has at its core all the elements that you will discuss during your stay here in Dominica, for the transformation of Caribbean Agriculture in a manner that ensures market competitiveness, addresses food and nutritional insecurities and employment, particularly among the rural resource poor. These areas of concern should form the fundamental objectives of your deliberations, in addition to strategies for adaptation, mitigation and building resilience to the harmful effects of climate change.

I also would like to remind you, that in 2008, the European Commission-CARIFORUM Partnership Agreement (EC-CARIFORUM EPA) was also signed.

We have seen over the past years, significant decline in traditional exports to the EU and out migration from agriculture in the Caribbean, while our extra-regional food import bill is estimated at around $4 billion US dollars annually. Essentially, ladies and gentlemen, we are rapidly mortgaging our food sovereignty.

The EPA has implications for many of our small open economies. However, without the successful implementation and operation of the CSME, we will be unable to take advantage of economies of scale in the region, let alone to capitalize on the vast market access that the EPA affords Caribbean exporters. It seems to me that the major actors in implementing the CSME and to some extent the EPA have waxed cold.

This is another area of focus that you must address frontally. The EPA and the JAI lays out lucidly the competitive forces at play in globally liberalized markets such as those of North America and the European Union (our traditional export markets). This by itself, is a clear indication of the kind of agriculture that is required as we plan ahead. It also gives us ideas about the rural economies and the vulnerabilities that we face.

Therefore all these issues, including the millennium goals of 2015 and beyond, that I have not touched on today, must be kept in full view during this week’s deliberations. And of course, this year’s Caribbean Week of Agriculture will only truly achieve its objectives if it builds on the gains and lessons learned of the past, and charts a course that will lead to building a robust Caribbean-wide agriculture sector in the context of changing global market conditions and the global phenomenon of climate change.

Do have yourself a pleasant week here and I look forward to meeting with you as often as I can during the course of the week.

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org
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