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.

Two major highlights of the hub are the video messages from the Incoming Chair, Dr the Most Honourable Andrew Holness, Prime Minister of Jamaica.

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 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) through its continued partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, is conducting another round of data collection for the Caribbean Food Security and Livelihoods survey.  

First introduced in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the survey collects data from respondents across the English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean.

Regional statisticians and agriculture stakeholders are participating in a workshop in Trinidad and Tobago aimed at building capacity to measure and monitor food security and nutrition (FSN).