United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) having declared the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables 2021 (IYFV), Guyana is expected to play a leading role, not only locally, but at Caribbean Community level (CARICOM) in ensuring that IYFV leads to, among other things, a greater appreciation at the level of CARICOM member countries of the importance of fruits and vegetables to the diet of their respective populations as well as, here in Guyana, making the most of the local and overseas. market opportunities that can be derived from the agricultural sector’s fruit and vegetable sub-sectors.
The arrival of IYFV comes at a significant point for the Caribbean in terms of food security.
It’s no secret that CARICOM is currently facing a regional food import bill that currently exceeds US $ 5 billion. There have been no discernible serious attempts to lower that food import bill. Secondly and more directly, the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the importance of highlighting the pursuit of fruit and vegetable growing as options for improving food security. Third, the spread of IYFV has coincided with an enhanced local and regional interest in agro-processing as options for manufacturing, job creation and for conserving and consuming fruits and vegetables.
Locally, and as one of the aims of IYFV is to “strengthen the role of smallholder and family farmers in sustainable farming and production practices that account for the livelihoods of millions of rural families within the framework of the United Nations Family Farming Decade (2019-2028),” it is vitally important for public and private sector organizations and their respective partners in the agricultural and agro-processing industries to draw up and implement fresh, practical strategies for the use of food and vegetables for the nutritional benefit of the country as well as its value added.
In addition to these activities, IYFV provides the opportunity to create strategic, logistical and technological options to counteract the high levels of food and waste loss in food supply / fruit and vegetable value chains.
Here, and assuming Guyana’s high-profile participation in it, we are entitled to expect that this year’s proposed UN Food Systems Summit forum will see Guyana’s active participation. One of the aims of this event is to allow creative responses to global hunger problems to be set which will enhance the country’s image as an actor on the international stage. Through that channel, Guyana can serve as a critical actor during the Decade of Action and deliver towards the SDGs.
Similarly, one would imagine that Guyana may seek to use the opportunity afforded by IYFV to strengthen its position as regional leader of the agricultural sector. Here, the possibility arises for convening a regional forum on fruit and vegetable growing and consumption to which additional regional participation can be extended and which can play the role of an important global attention recipient for the region as a whole.
As the UN has asserted itself, in the context of responding to and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an assessment of the effects of the pandemic on food safety and nutrition, including the importance of fruit and vegetables in boosting immunity has become a matter of global crisis. Also identify urgent and coordinated actions to avoid the most damaging consequences of the quantitative and qualitative challenges associated with food safety. Accordingly, the United Nations has stated that food safety and nutrition must be “a central component of international action and national policies and
the specific focus of partnerships. “It is vital, says the United Nations, that safe, nutritious, affordable foods, including fruits and vegetables, continue to reach everyone, especially the most insecure and nutritionally vulnerable when needed on them. We in Guyana must make this a priority at the national level first.
It’s no secret that there are concerns that the general health considerations arising from the COVID-19 circumstance could trigger a global food crisis, increasing the risks to health and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people. These shock waves of such a crisis will be felt across the fruit and vegetable sector.
Accordingly, policy measures should aim to address disruption, laying the foundation for long-term sustainability and improving coordination with all concerned actors along the food supply chain.
Locally, IYFV also provides an obvious reason for farmers and agro processors – small operators, in particular – to receive much more official attention and practical support. This applies, in particular, to the significant numbers of farmers and agro-processors whose fragile enterprises are, in some cases, threatened by extinction due to reduced production capacities and market losses.