Uphill battle

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to make its presence felt across the globe, the issues of food security and economic activity continue to be heavy talking points, especially in the context of third world countries and small island developing states. Recently the United Nations and the United Nations Development Programme hosted an e-conference titled ‘Consultation for Action – Food Security and Economic Diversification as Part of the COVID-19 Response’, which brought the fight home as they tackled the challenges being faced in the Caribbean region.

The opening address, which was delivered by Head of Office of the World Food Programme for the Caribbean, Regis Chapman, showed up the stark reality that the region imports over 80 per cent of its food and has a food import bill of $5 billion annually. Noting that global production levels appear to be good, it was the supply chains and labour markets that put food on Caribbean tables that could prove to be problematic for import-reliant countries in the region as they were expected to be disrupted.

Addressing economic diversification as part of COVID-19 response, Director of Research and Economic Analysis Department at the Central Bank of Barbados Anton Belgrave, explained that Barbados was unique in the Caribbean setting as it moved away from agriculture, namely sugar, in the late 1960s. Noting that it earned the island about 88 per cent of its export earnings around that time, he added that by 2016, agriculture had declined to about 3.8 per cent of GDP.

Listing some of the key challenges facing agriculture in Barbados and a select few islands in the region as relatively thin soil, low annual rainfall, salt-laden winds, and what he called an acute demand for agricultural lands to be released for commercial, industrial and residential uses, Belgrave showed the uphill battle to be fought for the secure future of agriculture in Barbados. “Consequently, the amount of arable land has declined from about 38 per cent to 25 per cent by 2013 and this is an estimate that was done by a survey by the World Bank. So you can see there are pressures really pushing you away from agriculture as you try to fulfill the needs of tourism, industry and housing from your local residents,” he said.

Noting that Barbados was also one of the more densely populated countries in the world, Belgrave highlighted a silver lining as the island enjoyed a measure of success in terms of diversification as it related to non-sugar and sugar agriculture citing sound performances in chicken and pork production, sweet potatoes, milk production and rum production. He went on to reveal though, that there was a hefty price to pay for local production. “One of the downsides however, is that increased production has been bought, so to speak, by having high effective rates of protection for these industries. Production costs are high in the region, especially so in Barbados. We also have fairly high tariffs. In agriculture, the average is something around 33 per cent but it ranges from zero to 214 per cent. And there are also some non-tariff measures as well as significant fiscal transfers to the agricultural sector.”

Although trade deficits exist in all food categories, they are balanced out in large part due to tourism under normal conditions. However with Barbados being heavily dependent on tourism and with COVID-19 bringing the industry to a screeching halt, a perfect storm has been created. “Hotels are crucial to Barbados’ survival. Directly, the tourism industry makes up about 70 per cent of the Barbados economy, but the indirect effects are much more significant. So you can easily double this figure when you consider the indirect effects and induce effects from tourism. Currently, tourism earns the vast majority of hard currency necessary to pay for this import food bill. And given COVID, tourism has been shut down effectively for about two months now,” he said.

Despite Barbados reaping success in many other areas, Belgrave suggested that sugar production remains the best option for us. “We need to explore more strategies in terms of commercialising the value-added products from sugar because while the sugar industry has shrunk, it is still an extremely valuable resource, and given Barbados’ particular climactic conditions, sugar is still one of the best crops to grow given the soil conditions and lack of water,” he said while also suggesting that we needed to improve our harvesting of water for irrigation.

Listing a myriad of education and technological solutions for improving agriculture and tourism in Barbados as the two were intimately intertwined, Belgrave urged all and sundry to make investments as climate change was expected to be the next major challenge to food security in the world. “Looking beyond COVID-19, there’s a deep need for significant investment in climate-smart agriculture. The forecast models we are seeing all suggest that drought will persist and increase as climate change accelerates and the Caribbean is going to be one of the regions that is hit pretty hard by the global warming phenomenon,” he said. (MP)