THE increasing Caribbean food import bill has led to several public concerns, including the impact it is having on domestic food production.
This is one of the key findings of a study which the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) conducted on behalf of the region.
“As the price of shopping baskets increases and as domestic producers lose market share to imported substitutes, there is increasing public pressure on governments to formulate strategies to lower food imports,” said the findings of the FAO study done in collaboration with the CARICOM Secretariat as part of a project on Promoting CARICOM/CARIFORUM Food Security.
It said that most prominently, many Caribbean governments, private sector and civil society are concerned about rising volumes of food imports from developed economies – particularly where they enjoy the advantage of large production scales, subsidised inputs and/or sophisticated marketing campaigns.
The concern is that these high import volumes “have crowded out regional food production and that the region’s competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis imports has led to losses in employment, food security and rural well being.
The study found that the region spent Bds$8 billion on food imports up to 2008. What is very significant based on data unearthed in the study is that some countries have doubled their food import bill in the space of 10 years. This has also coincided with stagnant agricultural output in some countries.
That 2008 figure has further increased since then.
“The study finds that while the Caribbean continues to produce a large share of several foodstuffs (including fruits, vegetables, pulses, meat, fish, rice and beverages), there are key categories of staples where the region’s food producers have lost competitive market share to cheaper and/or more expensively branded imports,” according to the report.
This loss of market share, it is pointed out, has fed a vicious circle where lower domestic production leads to higher imports, which in turn, affect consumer preferences through the lower priced and often more consistently available imported substitutes.
“These imports further restrict the domestic market and squeeze profit margins for producers,” it added. (JB)
