OECS agriculture ministers are being urged to move beyond repeated discussions on food security and start delivering on long-standing regional plans.
That message emerged from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States’ Third Special Meeting of the Council of Ministers for Agriculture, held in Jamaica on September 30. Details of the meeting were outlined in an OECS press release issued on October 16.
According to the release, ministers agreed to speed up work under the region’s food and agriculture strategy, with renewed focus on removing trade barriers, improving regional transport, and getting more food produced and moved within the region.
OECS Director General Dr Didacus Jules put the problem plainly, warning that the region’s biggest weakness is no longer a shortage of plans but the failure to carry them out.
“A nation can defer a constitutional reform or postpone a highway. It cannot postpone dinner,” Jules said.
“Food sovereignty is not romance; it is the right and the ability to decide what we grow, what we eat, and on what terms we trade. The world has accelerated faster than our implementation, and our greatest vulnerability remains the implementation deficit.”
The meeting was held on the margins of the 2026 Caribbean Week of Agriculture and also saw Saint Kitts and Nevis take over the chairmanship of the OECS Council of Ministers for Agriculture from Montserrat.
Jules said the OECS Food and Agriculture Systems Transformation Strategy now needs to move towards firmer deadlines and practical action.
Among the priorities he identified were using the region’s collective purchasing power, creating dedicated maritime shipping routes for agricultural trade, harmonising food safety and agricultural standards, and protecting key resources such as seeds, soil, water, and pollinators.
The difficulty of moving agricultural goods between Caribbean countries was also raised by incoming chairman and Saint Kitts and Nevis Agriculture Minister Samal Duggins.
“How can we continue to collectively speak of regional integration when it remains far easier for any one of us at times to import agricultural produce from outside of our region than it is to move it between our member states?” Duggins questioned.
That challenge has long complicated efforts to increase regional food production. Even where farmers are able to produce more, getting goods from one island to another can involve transport, regulatory, and market-access hurdles.
Duggins said his chairmanship would focus on removing some of those obstacles while also expanding agricultural links with Africa and South America and creating greater space for young people and women in the sector.
“A strategy is only as powerful as our collective commitment to that fundamental word: ‘implement it’. Let this chairmanship be defined not by the number of meetings that we hold, but by the barriers that we remove, the markets that we open, and the opportunities that we create.”
Outgoing chairman John P. Osbourne of Montserrat also called for greater urgency.
During his tenure, attention was placed on areas including water resilience, climate-smart infrastructure, protected agriculture, and improving inter-island transport for both passengers and agricultural produce.
The release also said ministers heard from the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture and the Caribbean Development Bank on areas where regional cooperation could be strengthened.
IICA Director General Dr Muhammad Ibrahim pointed to priorities such as increased intra-regional trade, greater involvement of young people and women in agriculture, and the creation of a regional seed bank.
Meanwhile, the Caribbean Development Bank outlined its work in the agricultural sector across OECS countries and possible areas for deeper cooperation.
The Council subsequently suggested establishing an OECS Agriculture Task Force to help develop agricultural projects that could attract financing.
One immediate deadline has already been set.
Member states were given 30 days to finalise their feedback on a draft OECS Apiculture Policy aimed at protecting bee populations and the wider ecosystems that depend on them.
Full Statement Here: https://pressroom.oecs.int
