QUITO, Ecuador, CMC –Caricom countries Monday called for a policy to deal with rising food prices globally as they joined their Latin American counterparts in discussing the agri-food sector, which is being regarded as a key to move beyond the crisis that has engulfed the world over the past two years.

Guyana’s Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha, told the 37th Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) that food prices had become a “very, very important issue” around the world.

“What is taking place, we have had the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic for two years. We have had the war in Russia and Ukraine and we have other issues that exacerbate the situation with food prices around the world,” Mustapha told the conference being attended by ministers and delegations both virtually and in person.

Mustapha, who was elected vice-chair of the five-day conference, said “we as a region in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially in Caricom, we are now looking at proposals and ways on how we could bring down the food prices and reduce our import bill”.

He said he is supportive of a proposal tabled by Ecuador on the issue, adding “I think we can come out here when we leave this conference, we can come out with a lot of measures that we can put in place and take back to our countries and region so that we can work together to reduce the food import bill of Latin America and the Caribbean and also for food security for this part of the world”.

Earlier, St Vincent and the Grenadines Agriculture Minister Saboto Caesar told the conference that while he too supported the Ecuador proposal, food prices would not only be affected by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

“We are at a particular period where we have witnessed over the last two years because of significant disruptions in food supply chains as a resultant implication of the COVID-19 pandemic that we really cannot say coming out of this conference the impact it is going to have on food prices.

“And while I support the presentation from the delegation of Argentina, I think we cannot leave Quito without having as a major consideration on the agenda, the issue of the impact ..on food prices, of all that is taking place, and not only what is happening in the Russia-Ukraine conflict but also the existing impact that existed because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Caesar said, fully endorsing the Ecuador proposal.

According to the FAO, Latin America and the Caribbean is committed to confronting and overcoming the most complex humanitarian, economic and social crisis in recent decades, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It said no other region has been hit so hard.

“The agri-food sector is key to moving beyond the crisis. From farms, all the way to consumers’ tables, the people, organisations and businesses that make up the region’s agri-food systems employ tens of millions of people.”