Beryl’s Impact: CARICOM intends to address agricultural setback

Caribbean: Hurricane Beryl laid disastrous impact on the Caribbean region where the agriculture sector has been seen almost vanished. In this respect, CARICOM (The Caribbean Community and Common Market) decided to address the setback following Hurricane Beryl.

Dr. Irfaan Ali- The President of Guyana and the Chairperson of the Caribbean Community asked the task force to convene a strategic meeting that can support in addressing the issues. On Sunday, during the meeting, the Minister highlighted that in several of the islands, the agriculture sector was completely wiped.

Considerably, the Minister casted light on Comprehensive analysis as the required part to address the situation. He also outlined that the task force will explore the ideas of how the small nation islands can be rebuilt.

He significantly laid an emphasis on making technology available and planting quick yielding varieties to get earnings back to the farmers. Price Stability and Critical Commodities are required to be discussed so these can be supplied to the affected islands to avoid its impact at the household level.

Minister Irfaan Ali said, “There are some thoughts and some initial ideas that I have shared with some colleagues and also the Chair of the Ministerial Task Force on agriculture to see how we can quickly mobilize the necessary stakeholders and resources to address this tremendous setback that our 25 by 2025 action plan is being hit with by Beryl.”

Through such a statement, the minister highlighted the loss that the countries have faced through this, which even impacted progress being done in the country through several of the initiatives.

Minister Ali added that they as well have plans to request the support from the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) and the ECA (European Commission of Agriculture) from an early stage only to assist the farmers and work with the region.

Along with this, the nutrition value as well has been affected post Beryl which also is under the target to be considered. Major agricultural loss has been seen on the island nations like Barbados, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Jamaica and Grenada.