Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) Vulnerability Workshop

1. Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS)Vulnerability Workshop The Caribbean Food System: Background, Socio-economic Issues and Vulnerability to GEC Ranjit Singh (UWI, Trinidad) Adrian Trotman (CIMH, Barbados)

2. The Caribbean Region

3. Country Profile Table - CARICOM 2000 (Physical)

4. Country Profile Table - CARICOM 2000 (Economic Indicators)

5. Regional characterisation • Many small island states (apart from Guyana and Belize) • Diverse cultures, environments and food provision systems • Great dependence on food imports • Reliance on export crops, tourism & other non-food sectors (e.g. minerals) to provide revenue • Susceptibility to weather extremes • Susceptibility to changes in preferential export markets • Weak regional-level institutional connectivity

6. Major Sources of Foreign Exchange: • Agricultural exports • Tourism • Exception: Trinidad and Tobago where the energy sector is dominant: • Oil • Gas (LNG) • Methanol • Ammonia

7. Caribbean Agricultural Exports Dominated by Traditional Commodities: • Major: (sold under preferential market) • Sugar • Bananas • Other: (sold under non-preferential market) • Rice • Coffee beans • Cocoa beans

8. The Caribbean Region: A Net Importer of Food

9. Caribbean Food Imports Dominated By: • Cereal: wheat & corn Food & livestock feed • Oils: soyabean and corn • Meat Products

10. Market Liberalization: WTO 1995 • Removal of support for agriculture • Lowering of tariffs on imports • Dismantling of market preferences under ACP/EU protocol

11. Impact of Liberalization: Banana • Banana industry unable to compete at non-preferential prices • Decline in earnings: • St. Lucia: (EC)$184 mn in 1992 to 43 mn in 2001 • Windward islands (group): EC$ 316 mn in 1992 to 102 mn in 2001

12. Impact of Liberalization: Sugar • Preferential EU market includes: • Protocol sugar • SPS sugar • Declining sugar prices: earnings from sugar export have declined by 25% in the past 8 years • Reduced quota: CARICOM exports of SPS have declined by 15% each year since the introduction of EBA • SPS quota likely to be fully re-allocated to EBA countries by 2009

13. Overall Impact • Declining production • Declining incomes • Increasing levels of poverty/unemployment • Increasing incidence of malnutrition

14. Priority Policy Goals for CARICOM • Food security • Enhancing productivity and international competitiveness in agriculture • Food safety • Rural employment • Sustainability of the food/agricultural sector and rural communities

15. Observational evidence indicates that regional changes in climate have already affected many physical and biological systems • Shrinkage of glaciers • Thawing of permafrost • Later freezing and earlier breakup of ice on rivers and lakes • Lengthening of mid to high latitude growing seasons • Poleward and altitudinal shifts of plant and animal ranges • Declines of some plant and animal populations • Earlier flowering of trees, emergence of insects and, egg laying in birds

16. Aspects of GEC of particular concern to the Caribbean region • Changing climate variability • Changes in mean climate (including global change) • Changes in the frequency, intensity and tracking of tropical cyclones and other extreme weather events • Sea level rise • GEC and social impacts on land and water resources and availability

17. Vulnerability • Increase in atmospheric temperature • Global average surface temp. projected to warm 1.4-5.8 °C by 2100 relative to 1990 • Changes in crop responses • Heat stress in livestock • Greater change further poleward which may imply change in markets, competition from what were existing or potential markets • Increased sea surface temperatures • Damage to coral reefs • Losses of current marine/fishing species • Loss of tourist attraction (diving and snorkeling) • Changing species (non-reef)

18. Vulnerability • Tropical storms and hurricanes • Increased frequency and intensities • Greater infrastructural damage • Losses of agricultural production • Other severe systems • Reports of greater intensities without necessarily an increase in annual rainfall • Flooding • Runoff and erosion

19. Vulnerability • Sea level rise • Global average sea level projected to rise 0.09-0.88m by 2100 • Small islands with loss of significant land area, most cities situated near sea ports • In the case of Guyana loss of capital city of majority of agriculture • Salt water intrusion • Destruction of beaches, losses to tourism

20. Vulnerability • Drought • Often associated with ENSO (in conjunction with NAO) events • Crop and livestock losses in states whose agricultural production are mainly rainfed • Agriculture water competing with domestic, tourism and other industries

21. Temperature and Rainfall Trends since 1950Petersen et. al 2001

22. Tropical Cyclones from 1900 to 200010-20 oN; 55-65 oWH Burton, S Burton (CIMH)

23. Annual Rainfall during ENSO and Non-ENSO yearsH Burton, S Burton (CIMH)

24. Wet Season Rainfall during ENSO and Non-ENSO yearsH Burton, S Burton (CIMH)

25. Dry Season Rainfall during ENSO and Non-ENSO yearsH Burton, S Burton (CIMH)

26. 10 Year Moving average of Rainfall from 1850s to 1990sS Burton (CIMH)

27. Caribbean Food Systems Project

28. Overarching GECAFS Questions • Theme 1: How will GEC (especially land degradation, variability in rainfall distribution, sea surface temperature, tropical storms and sea-level rise) affect vulnerability of food systems in the Caribbean? • Theme 2: What combinations of policy and technical diversification in food harvested and traded for local consumption, in export commodities and in tourism would best provide effective adaptation strategies? • Theme 3: What would be the consequences of these combinations on national and regional food provision, local livelihoods and natural resource degradation?

29. STORY LINE 1: LOCAL LEVEL Target: Food systems in resource-poor communities based on fishing and locally-produced food crops. Aim: To reduce food system vulnerability, especially in relation to changes in climate variability. STORY LINE 2: REGIONAL LEVEL Target: Caribbean regional food provision. Aim: To develop regional-level strategies to reduce the additional complications GEC would bring to regional food provision, given changing preferential export markets. Story lines developed for two spatial levels:Local and Regional

30. GECAFS QuestionsLocal Level • Theme 1 How would changes in climate variability and water availability affect food systems of communities on different islands? • Theme 2 How would current national and regional policy instruments (e.g. access to markets, insurance schemes, EEZs) best be adjusted to enhance the effectiveness of technical options for diversifying cropping systems and fisheries so as to reduce vulnerability to GEC? • Theme 3 To what extent would these strategies affect food provision by altering the proportional reliance on local vs. imported commodities, and how would changed land management and associated changes in runoff affect coastal fisheries and other aspects of coastal zone ecology and tourism income based on this?

31. GECAFS QuestionsRegional Level • Theme 1 What additional factors would GEC bring to destabilise the region’s food system, and in particular what would be their impact on revenue generation from different cash commodities? • Theme 2 How could regional institutional changes best be introduced to sustain regional food provision by maximising diversification options and inter-island trade? • Theme 3 How would changes in intra-regional trade, and in policy and technical development at a regional level affect development in individual islands, and how could such changes be promoted to conserve the natural resource base of the region?

32. Regional Response: Challenges • Diversification challenges: • Difficulty of achieving economics of scale • Production characterized by small fragmented farms • Sloping and hilly terrain limit mechanization and labour-saving technology • Market access/penetration constraints • Shipping/handling costs • Quality issues • Lack of critical export volumes

33. Regional Response: Challenges (Continued) • Rapid conversion of best arable lands to housing/built development • Problem of losses from crop/livestock larceny • Declining water resource availability • Degradation of watersheds • Weak R&D and Innovation Support • Weak linkage of agrifood sector with tourism