The Government of Guyana and the CARICOM Development Fund (CDF) yesterday signed a US$18 million financing agreement to kickstart the Agricultural and Infrastructural Development Programme (AIDP), which will see over 4,300 farmers across the ten regions of Guyana benefitting, with forty per cent of the beneficiaries being women and youth. The programme will allow for a further boost to Guyana’s agriculture sector in the form of support for compliance with food safety, sanitary and phytosanitary standards in the sector.

Ambassador David Prendergast, Director, Sectoral Programmes at the CARICOM Secretariat, has highlighted the positive results of the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) 25 x 2025+5 Initiative.

He identified the key advancements in the approval and implementation of the Trade Policy for Animal and Animal Products (TPAAP), Regional Agricultural Health and Food Safety Policy, Sanitary and Phyto Sanitary (SPS) Guidelines for Trade in 19 special agricultural commodities, and the Alternate SPS Dispute Settlement Mechanism.

The private sector in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) must take the lead in strengthening regional food security, driving economic development, and stimulating investment in the agriculture sector.

In a significant step toward bolstering food security in the Region, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), in partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), launched the Caribbean Real-Time Food Security Monitoring Dashboard. The digital platform, unveiled on Thursday, 10 April 2025, offers live updates on food security conditions across 11 Caribbean nations: Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, St.

The project aligns with Barbados’ wider goals under the CARICOM 25 by 2025 (now 25 X 2030) agenda to reduce food imports and improve youth engagement in agriculture.