Region warned that climate change is putting a strain on global food systems

The for­mer pres­i­dent of the Al­liance for a Green Rev­o­lu­tion in Africa (AGRA), Dr. Agnes Kali­ba­ta, says cli­mate change will con­tin­ue to strain glob­al food sys­tems, and that small is­land de­vel­op­ing states (SIDS) must be pre­pared for the re­sult­ing in­sta­bil­i­ty.

She told the au­di­ence at­tend­ing the 50th Sir Win­ston Scott Memo­r­i­al Lec­ture that many re­gions are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing weath­er ex­tremes that are dis­rupt­ing har­vests and dri­ving un­pre­dictabil­i­ty in food sup­ply.

She said African farm­ers have been forced to ad­just to chang­ing rain­fall pat­terns and pro­longed dry spells, with di­rect im­pli­ca­tions for pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and liveli­hoods.

The lec­ture, or­gan­ised by the Cen­tral Bank of Bar­ba­dos, and Kali­ba­ta, speak­ing on the top­ic, “Feed­ing To­mor­row: In­no­va­tion Meets Cli­mate Re­al­i­ty” said glob­al trends were al­ready re­shap­ing how coun­tries feed them­selves.

She said that cli­mate-re­lat­ed dis­rup­tions in ma­jor food-pro­duc­ing re­gions can re­duce glob­al sup­ply, el­e­vate prices, and cre­ate rip­ple ef­fects that reach im­port-de­pen­dent na­tions such as Bar­ba­dos.

She not­ed that world food mar­kets are in­creas­ing­ly sen­si­tive to shocks, and coun­tries with­out buffers are most ex­posed.

Re­spond­ing to the sug­ges­tion that young peo­ple are not in­ter­est­ed in agri­cul­ture, Kali­ba­ta said fi­nanc­ing for the sec­tor is key.

“It’s on­ly a back­yard ac­tiv­i­ty when we can’t har­ness it. It’s on­ly a back­yard thing when we can’t in­vest in it. It’s on­ly an area where young peo­ple don’t go be­cause it doesn’t make sense. So, we have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to make this sec­tor pro­duc­tive.”

The for­mer agri­cul­ture and an­i­mal re­sources min­is­ter in Rwan­da said Bar­ba­dos had al­ready tak­en some pol­i­cy de­ci­sions that oth­er coun­tries could learn from.

She cit­ed the coun­try’s in­vest­ment in green­house pro­duc­tion, the tax on sug­ar-sweet­ened bev­er­ages, im­prove­ments in school meals, and the pro­tec­tion of agri­cul­tur­al land.

In a post-lec­ture dis­cus­sion, Bar­ba­dos Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Food, and Nu­tri­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, In­dar Weir, high­light­ed his gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to build re­silience, mod­ernise agri­cul­ture, and re­duce re­liance on open-field farm­ing, which is in­creas­ing­ly vul­ner­a­ble to ex­treme weath­er. He spoke of key ini­tia­tives in­volv­ing aquapon­ics, the train­ing of young farm­ers, the in­tro­duc­tion of green­hous­es in schools, and new ver­ti­cal farm­ing sys­tems de­vel­oped with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners.

Weir said these ef­forts were al­ready show­ing ear­ly gains and stressed the need for pri­vate-sec­tor in­volve­ment and a stronger fo­cus on val­ue-added prod­ucts.

Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Dr. Kevin Greenidge said food se­cu­ri­ty and cli­mate re­silience are in­ter­twined with our eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty and our qual­i­ty of life.

“They af­fect every­thing from house­hold bud­gets and pub­lic health to trade, tourism, and so­cial eq­ui­ty. As a cen­tral bank, we recog­nise that cli­mate risks can quick­ly be­come fi­nan­cial risks that af­fect pro­duc­tion, in­vest­ment, and long-term growth. In re­cent times, in­clud­ing just last week, we’ve seen first-hand how the un­pre­dictable weath­er – drought fol­lowed by heavy rain­fall – has im­pact­ed our agri­cul­tur­al out­turn,” he said.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Nov 29, CMC