Minister Green Urges Actionable Outcomes from Caribbean Week of Agriculture

Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining Minister, Hon. Floyd Green, is urging clear, actionable outcomes from the staging of Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA 2026) as the region works to achieve food security in keeping with the CARICOM “25 by 2025” target.

The initiative aims to reduce the region’s extra-regional food import bill by 25 per cent by 2030.

Addressing a plenary session during day two of the conference at the Ocean Coral Spring Resort in Trelawny on Monday (September 29), Minister Green said that the region has spent years identifying its agricultural vulnerabilities, particularly climate change and high import bills.

“We are now here, not just to begin a week of dialogue but to ensure that we convert dialogue into action,” he stated.

“As a region, we are very good at talking but oftentimes we fall down on implementation,” he pointed out.

The session, titled ‘Achieving the Region’s Vision 2025+5 Initiative: The Roadmap for Regional Food Security and Food Systems Transformation,’ was moderated by Director of Sectoral Programmes at the CARICOM Secretariat, Ambassador David Prendergast.

The meeting included Belize’s Agriculture Minister, Rodwell Ferguson; Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Muhammad Ibrahim; Barbados’s Agriculture and Food Security

Minister, Shantal Munro-Knight; St. Lucia’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Security Minister, Lisa Jawahir; and Assistant Director General and Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, René Orellana Halkyer.

Hosted by the Government of Jamaica in collaboration with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, the regional conference focuses on transforming the region’s food security under the theme ‘The New FACE of Caribbean Food Systems’.

Day-two discussions also highlighted the new Regional Centre of Excellence for Agricultural Innovation to be established in Jamaica.

The centre is designed to serve as a collaborative hub for climate-smart technologies, advanced agronomy research, and data-driven farming practices.

Citing the current hot and dry conditions, Minister Green emphasised the need to leverage shared regional experiences to build greater resilience for farmers and food systems.

He noted that integrating youth, technology, and agribusiness is the only viable path to making Caribbean farming both profitable and resilient.

The Minister further cited the need to improve logistics to “move agricultural goods efficiently and affordably across countries”.

Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA) runs from September 27 to October 2.

The gathering aims to produce a definitive action plan to accelerate sector growth, enhance food security, boost agribusiness, integrate climate-smart technologies, and expand regional exports.