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Overview of agriculture in Commonwealth Caribbean & Americas
The Caribbean and Americas Commonwealth is made up of 13 countries. These include Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and The Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. In this study, based on their characteristics, they have been split into two categories: (1) Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and (2) Canada.
Below is a summary of characteristics of agriculture in the Commonwealth Caribbean & Americas.
Caribbean Small Island Developing Countries (SIDS)
- The Caribbean SIDS is made up of island countries that mostly share similar characteristics thus conduct similar agricultural activities, face similar climate shocks such as hurricanes as well as developmental challenges. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing contributes 5.62 per cent to the GDP1 of the Caribbean SIDS and employs 9.42 per cent of the population.
- The low contribution to GDP can be attributed to the fact that for most SIDS, tourism is the key sector. However, in countries such as Dominica and Guyana, the contribution to GDP from the agriculture, forestry, and fishing sector is higher with contributions of 13 and 17.6 per cent, respectively.
- Almost all the Caribbean Islands states import over 60 per cent of the food they consume. The SIDS are riddled with challenges resulting from poor nutrition with one-third of adults in the Caribbean SIDS being obese.2
Canada
- Canada is a higher-income economy with a per capita GDP of $ 46,194.73 as of 2019.
- The agriculture, forestry and fishing sector contribute 1.9 per cent to the Canadian GDP and employs 1.5 per cent of the population. Arable land takes 4.3 per cent of the total land area.
- Agriculture in Canada is mostly practiced commercially on a large scale. Whereas only 4.3 per cent of Canada’s land mostly in the western part of the country is arable, the country has significant agricultural export volumes and has a booming market size for agricultural and agri-foods products.
- After the European Union, USA, Brazil, and China, Canada is the fifth largest exporter of agricultural and agri-food products in the world, with the country exporting over a half of what they produce. The country exports approximately US $56 billion worth of agricultural and agri-food products annually.3
“The Commonwealth Caribbean is made up of island countries that mostly share similar characteristics and thus conduct similar agricultural activities, face similar climate shocks such as hurricanes as well as developmental challenges.”
“The Commonwealth Caribbean is one of the most vulnerable geographic regions in the world to the potential impacts of climate change”
Systemic constraints affecting agriculture in Commonwealth Caribbean & Americas
Countries across Commonwealth Caribbean & Americas face several systemic constraints to developing their agricultural sectors.
These include:
- Climate vulnerability and agricultural productivity
- Access to finance and investment
- Market, trade and supply chain issues
- Women and youth inclusion
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State of digital agriculture in the Caribbean & Americas
The state of digital agriculture in the region is assessed using the digital agriculture framework described under the methodology section.
It consists of (I) digital agriculture innovations, (II) agriculture data infrastructure, (III) business development services, and (IV) the enabling environment for the digitalisation of agriculture.
“Almost all the Caribbean island states import over 60 per cent of the food they consume.”
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Digital agriculture innovations
In the Commonwealth Caribbean, many digital agriculture solutions in the region are not publicly documented, though eleven were purposively sampled.
In Canada, Digital agriculture solutions predominantly provide crop-based pre-harvest advisory (92 percent), research and management (59 percent) and post-harvest advisory (59 percent) services.
Distribution of Digital Agricultural Solutions by Use Case - Canada
Crop-based pre-harvest advisory
Research and data management
Crop-based post-harvest advisory
n=112 solutions
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Agriculture data infrastructure
- While all the Commonwealth Caribbean SIDS have Government provided entities that collect weather data, none of them distribute this data using public and open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
- National agri-statistical data in the Caribbean SIDS is largely non-existent.
- Many farmers do not keep records and do not know the financial state of their enterprise.
- While each of the Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean SIDS has state-issued national identifiers, there is a general absence of publicly available data about the penetration of national identity schemes in the region.
- The Canadian Government on the other hand leverages the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) data (provided by the European Space Agency) via a mobile application.
- The Canadian Government issues a Social Insurance Number.
“National agri-statistical data in the Caribbean SIDS is largely non-existent.”
iii
Business development services
- In the Commonwealth Caribbean there is a lack of authoritative data that documents the flow of funding to different digital solutions in the region.
- In Canada, an existent business model is the bundled sale of digital innovation with farm machinery like tractors and combine harvesters.
“In Canada, one existent business model is the bundled sale of digital innovation with farm machinery like tractors and combine harvesters.”
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Enabling environment for digitalisation
The enabling environment for agriculture digitalisation consists of technology-related and non-technology-related enablers and barriers.
Technology-related enablers include access to internet-enabled and mobile devices, penetration of smartphone devices, network coverage, and internet-related infrastructure that enables digital solutions and technologies.
Non-technology-related enablers include regional demography, education levels amongst farming populations, mobile network-friendly policies, and financing models for mobile devices.
Internet use, proportion of population
The Bahamas
Barbados
St Kitts and Nevis
Trinidad and Tobago
Antigua and Barbuda
Policy recommendations to fast-track digitalisation
Recommendations for Commonwealth Caribbean countries to increase investment in digital agriculture innovation and scale-up solutions to market include:
- Attracting more service providers to the region through incentives
- Providing R&D support, including R&D incentives, funding for basic research and R&D grants
- Investing in the distribution of unique person identifiers and creating interoperability among different identity systemsUsing farmer groups as a gateway for extending digital agriculture solutions to smallholders
- Effecting public private partnerships to close the coverage gap in remote areas of some islands.
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Footnotes
1 Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, FAOSTAT. Data retrieved on August 8th, 2021. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data
2 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2021, Small Island Developing States, http://www.fao.org/sids/en/ (accessed on 10th July 2021)
3 Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, 2017, Agri-Food Exports, https://cafta.org/agri-food-exports/ (accessed on 10th July 2021)