CORAL SPRING, Trelawny – Gastronomy guru, founder and CEO of Best Dressed Plate, Nneka Nurse is concerned that small farmers, fishers, and producers are not benefiting enough from the economic activity they create.

Nurse, whose platform promotes and celebrates Caribbean cuisine globally, made the point Tuesday while presenting virtually on the panel “Food Security and Cultural Identity” during the third day of Caribbean Week of Agriculture 2026 at Ocean Coral Spring Hotel in Trelawny.

“What I want to talk about is the money, the money that’s already moving through our festivals and carnivals every year, and where it goes,” she told the panel.

She said every meal served at a festival represents a purchasing decision, with the money either supporting a local farmer, fisher, or producer or leaving the region through food imports.

“I always say when I go back home to the Caribbean, ‘I prefer to eat from a local farm than from a shipping container,’ ” she said.

Nurse argued that the Caribbean’s festival calendar, including Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, Barbados’ Crop Over, Jamaica Carnival, and Grenada’s Spicemas, presents an opportunity to create stronger markets for local agriculture.

She pointed out that government data from Trinidad and Tobago indicated that visitors spent about US$94.2 million during the 2024 Carnival period on entertainment, food, accommodation, transportation, and other activities. She noted, however, that these figures do not clearly show how much of that spending went specifically to food or local producers.

“It’s pretty clear to say that the demand is there, the money is there. What’s missing is the data,” Nurse said.

She is of the view that, for farmers to benefit, festival organisers need to rethink how they plan menus and purchase ingredients. Drawing on her background in construction project management, she pointed to the merit of applying the principle “You can’t manage what you cannot measure” to event production.

Nurse said farmers are often expected to provide a consistent supply despite receiving event details too late to effectively plan production.

“Consistency is a planning problem, not only a farmer problem,” she said.

“When festivals share their dates and their head counts and menus months ahead, then the farmers are able to plan and prepare to be able to provide the crop for those different festivals,” she added.

Nurse said chefs are also central to the process because their menu choices ultimately influence what organisers buy.

“As Allister [Glean, Barbados representative to Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture] said with the Chef for Dev programme, [which he leads], the menu is actually the procurement document. So by the time the menu is locked in, the buying decisions are going to be made. If the farmers are not in that conversation before the menu is set, they’re out of the whole entire spectrum,” she stressed.

“Chefs decide what goes on the plate. When a chef builds out the menu around what’s in season in that particular country, the procurement is going to follow right behind it,” she added.

Payment arrangements are another factor, Nurse said, particularly for small farmers who cannot absorb lengthy delays.

“A big distributor, it’s easy for them to carry a long wait to get paid, but a smaller farmer, they just don’t have the resources to do that. So, if we want farmers at the table, how and when we pay them matters as much as what we pay,” Nurse pointed out.

She said better tracking of festival purchases could also help farmers anticipate demand and plan production.

“If a farmer in St Elizabeth or Paramount or Saint Villa knows that festivals are buying callaloo, pimento, peppers in March, then the farmer can plan for it. The festival demand becomes something you can grow towards and not against,” she said.

Nurse urged festival and carnival organisers to share procurement information and called on governments and their agencies to make local sourcing part of their support for such events.

“From the ministries and the tourism boards, when you fund the festival ask for its local numbers. What gets asked for gets done,” she urged.

Nurse also encouraged farmers, fishers, and producers to tell potential buyers what they grow and when it is available.

“We want to put you in front of the buyers,” she said.

“Our festivals are already feeding thousands of people. Let’s make sure that the farmers are getting paid too,” Nurse said.

Another panellist, Dr Arlette St Ville, senior University of the West Indies lecturer at St Augustine Campus, called for data, policy support, and strategic marketing to strengthen Caribbean food festivals. She proposed a Caribbean Food Map to coordinate festivals, attract diaspora and other tourists, and support destination branding. She also stressed integrating local farmers into festival supply chains through stronger procurement linkages, ensuring farmers — not just intermediaries — benefit from growing food tourism.

Meanwhile, for Barbados’ Glean, the goal is “to achieve the reduction of our regional food import bill by 25 per cent by 2030”.

“That’s the hymn book that we should all be singing from. Whether you’re involved in climate resilience building, insurance, transportation standards, food safety. We want to reduce reliance on imported foods. Okay, we want to strengthen linkages: agriculture, hospitality, whoever. We need to strengthen those linkages. We want to engage in promotion,” he argued.

The panel, moderated by Martin Hughes of The University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus, was completed by panellist Joan David.