BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, (CMC) – The Food and Agriculture (FAO) says it will, over the coming months, continue its support to land bank initiatives across four Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries, with activities geared towards introducing, upgrading and training personnel on national land banks’ information systems.

The FAO said Grenada, St Kitts-Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines will also benefit from action plans that will be developed with each country, based on the discussions of a workshop held this week to establish work plans for improved land bank implementation.

According to the FAO, land banks as a tool in improving access to lands for agricultural development have existed for decades in many parts of the world.

It said in the Caribbean, they are slowly gaining traction as a means of redistributing underutilised and idle lands to farmers, allowing them to have more secure access to land to improve their agricultural productivity.

During the April 8-9 workshop, facilitated by the FAO through its Regional Office for Latin America and its Sub-regional Office for the Caribbean, the representatives shared, “The sessions sought to examine aspects of effective agricultural land management and areas of improving gender balance in access to land, to learn from countries that have developed national agricultural land banks and to share some best practices and recommendations to strengthen the implementation of agricultural land banks in the region,” the FAO said.

FAO’s land tenure officer, Amparo Cerrato Gevawer, highlighted the role of land banks in promoting the inclusion of marginalised groups in the agriculture sector, especially young people and women.

She said that ensuring inclusive land access can help in advancing the achievement of national, regional and global agendas, like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in promoting a sustainable and resilient regional food future.

The FAO said that at the end of the workshop, the countries agreed on several recommendations and conditions that would lead to the success of land banks.

“These include the need for land bank initiatives to be country driven, ensuring government buy-in and commitment from policy makers, approaching land banks as a flexible mechanism- adaptable to the priorities and needs of countries in promoting agricultural development, and ensuring that land administration of public lands was well managed to encourage buy-in by private landowners. “

Cerrato reiterated the FAO’s support in developing proposals and partnering with other projects and initiatives to support land bank implementation in the region. She said that strengthening land banks required support from other areas, such as training in good agricultural practices, capacity building of technical officers, value chain development, business model development and increasing access to markets.

She said that land banks are not a ‘silver bullet’ to solving food insecurity and problems faced by farmers, but are a useful policy tool in helping to build resilience to shocks, threats and risks faced by farmers.