In many developing countries, agriculture plays a significant role in their development. Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo, who has the lead responsibility for agriculture of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), said that eight CARICOM members are dependent on an agricultural sector, which represents 10 to 40 percent of their GDP.

Jagdeo, at an Agriculture Donor Conference at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on June 2, 2007, pointed out that there is a misguided perception that the region does not need support because of its high per capita GDP. This, he said, only masks unemployment, poverty, under-nutrition and hunger that exist in these countries.

President Jagdeo appealed to donors for financing and support to ensure food security and rural development throughout the region. Heads of state, agriculture and finance ministers of the Caribbean Community met in Port-of-Spain to attend the conference aimed at resuscitating financial flows and boosting technical support for diversified agricultural initiatives.

Discussions focused on the “Jagdeo Initiative” entitled “Strengthening Agriculture for Sustainable Development.” The Regional Transformation Program for Agriculture (RTPA) is expected to transform the agricultural sector to become internationally competitive. The Jagdeo Initiative forms a critical tenet of the RTPA’s holistic approach.
The initiative, which has garnered regional support as a sure way of transforming the state of the agriculture sector, seeks to alleviate constraints to the development of the sector and to create the enabling environment for a revival of investment in agriculture, to facilitate the transformation process.

The Jagdeo Initiative, strategically coupled with RTPA and other CARICOM agriculture strategies, is expected to facilitate investment and production, to improve effective technology development and transfer and to develop specific commodities and enterprises for increased food security and sustainable development.

Jagdeo indicated that the participation at the Agriculture Donor Conference gives a strong signal of the deep commitment now shared within CARICOM, multilateral agencies, technical support agencies and donors that the agricultural sector will occupy a prominent place in the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). This reflects the political will, driven by the heads of the region, and a changing attitude to agriculture of the population in the region.

CARICOM’s strategy for agricultural transformation draws on several policy documents, all of which build on the agricultural policy mandate laid out in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the Caribbean Community and contributing to the implementation of the Regional Transformation Program for Agriculture. More recently, the “Jagdeo Initiative” is serving to assist in the reshaping of the agricultural sector by focusing on the design and formulation of policy and planning infrastructure to alleviate selected overarching and common constraints that stifle agricultural growth and development across the Community.