BASSETERRE, St Kitts (CMC) — Caribbean Community (Caricom) agriculture ministers meet here on Tuesday focusing on a wide range of issues including the status and trends in fisheries and aquaculture production, trade, and employment; initiatives to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and a new grievance redress mechanism for the Belize-based Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM).

The meeting forms part of the activities for the 19th Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA 2025) that got underway here on Monday with St Kitts and Nevis Agriculture, Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister, Samal Duggins, highlighting the central role of agriculture in regional development and resilience.

“Agriculture is not just another sector. It is the very lifeblood of our people. It is the guarantee that every family can access healthy and nutritious food,”  he said in his feature address, reflecting also on the CWA 2025 theme “Sowing Change, Harvesting Resilience: Transforming our Caribbean Food Systems for 2025,  saying that the “seeds we plant here today, the policies we shape, the partnerships we build, will determine the resilience and the prosperity that we shall reap tomorrow”.

He urged regional leaders to confront long-standing challenges and elevate the agricultural agenda.

“Our region has not always given agriculture the priority it deserves. Too often, it has been seen as a last resort, rather than recognised as a pillar of sovereignty and a pillar of growth,” Duggins said, outlining efforts being made locally including the food import reduction programme, which prioritises local investment to increase the production of high-demand crops such as bananas, plantains, coconuts, and pineapples..

“We are scaling climate-smart practices, expanding agro-processing, and empowering our youth and women to lead in this very transformation,” he said, acknowledging the importance of unified regional efforts and emphasising the value of South-South cooperation, particularly through strengthening relationships with African nations.

He said the twin island Federation has been actively forging closer ties with countries like Nigeria and that such South-South collaboration enables shared learning in climate-smart agriculture, the creation of cross-continental value chains, and the development of deeper trade and innovation networks.

The agriculture ministers meeting, which will  be chaired by Anguilla’s Minister of Economic Development, Industry, Commerce, Lands, Planning, Water, and Natural Resources, Kyle Hodge, will also  discuss a regional training and capacity needs assessment being undertaken by the CRFM with support from GRÓ-Fisheries Training Programme (FTP), under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), as well as south-south cooperation with China.

The ministers will also receive updates and provide policy guidance on regional initiatives to address climate resilience and blue economic growth. These include the Global Affairs Canada-funded Sustainable Technologies for Adaptation and Resilience in Fisheries (STAR-Fish) Project; the GEF/CAF/FAO/CRFM BE-CLME+ Project: Promoting National Blue Economy Priorities through Marine Spatial Planning in the Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem Plus (BE-CLME+); and the New Zealand Bioeconomy Science Institute: Plant and Food Research Group/CRFM Sargassum Products for Climate Resilience in the Caribbean Project.

Meanwhile, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) will this week launch its landmark Common Apiculture Policy  coinciding with the 9th OECS Council of Ministers: Agriculture meeting.

The policy, developed under the EU-funded BioSPACE Programme in collaboration with regional partners, seeks to protect bees as vital pollinators while strengthening the apiculture sector through sustainable practices, standardised approaches, and research-driven strategies.

“We are going to have a technical paper and presentation presented within CWA so this is something that will be very pertinent for people like beekeepers, people who want to get into the apiculture space and policy makers,” said Beekeeper at the Department of Agriculture here, Monroe Tweed.

“What it is basically it is a document about how we would like to flesh out how we (standardise) beekeeping in the region and not just in St Kitts but this is a document that’s been building up for a number of years with baseline studies funded by Small Grant Programs (SGPs)

“We would also like to do an IPM which is an Integrated Pest Management paper because bees have their own pests, especially in the climate that we are in. It is an agricultural venture now so we must consider that as good stewards of bees.”

As part of the celebrations, the OECS-Caricom Caribbean Honey Show will also be featured during CWA 2025, offering patrons the opportunity to taste and purchase honey and related products, including soaps made from beeswax, honey cocktails, pastries, and more.

On Wednesday, the CRFM will partner with the local Department of Marine Resources and the National Fisherfolk Organisation to convene the Caribbean Small-scale Fisheries & Aquaculture Forum.