Land use and capability in the Caribbean

By Dr Joseph E. Edmunds and Anton E. Edmunds



Heightened international attention has recently been given to the subject of food security and increasingly, Caribbean voices have joined the chorus. This while hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on food importation into the region. While the World Health Organization (WHO) states that agriculture remains the largest source of employment in developing countries, by all appearances, the Caribbean must either have graduated from developing nation status or economic policy decisions have downgraded the importance of agriculture. One cannot help but observe that in many Caribbean countries, acreages of land are underutilized, many with grass, shrubs, and trees in abundance, and with no planned use at all to fulfill human needs.

Clearly, Caribbean planners have failed to recognize and give priority to what is seen by some as a fundamental tenet of development -- land capability and its effective usage. As a result, what is seen in the broader region is large land acreages of valuable national assets that appear abandoned and categorized as wastelands, even while there are increased domestic food needs. The uncoordinated approach that allows land to remain undeveloped, underdeveloped or converted into different types of development unrelated to land capabilities appears to be the norm in the region.

Further, in some cases, lands ideally suited for agricultural development – plant and animal production -- are abandoned or are converted into industrial or tourism/hotel development sectors without any thought to a functional integrated national plan. While tourism is the recognized economic driver for many in the region, and it is clear that the development of new hotels and resorts may well require access to strategically located properties. Unfortunately, efforts to integrate surrounding lands or maximize the use of fertile soils into the tourism product appear to be an afterthought.

The time is now when countries in the region need to take a critical look at their development policies and seek to incorporate viable landmass into strategic sustainable plans to meet the local and regional needs, thus contributing to the Caribbean’s ability to survive and compete in the global marketplace. A concerted effort is also needed to integrate key plant and animal production as a food resource for our tourism industry. This would contribute to the cultural experience of the visitor and temper the increasingly rapid move away from the land, a social development that needs to be carefully monitored. A taste of the Caribbean that accentuates local and regional products and flavours should be an addition to the visitors’ experience. There are already best practices, of hotels and restaurants that have had success in sourcing local agricultural and fisheries products. This should not be ignored, but rather replicated.

The issue of investing in an energy mix that includes renewable energy is another area where larger so-called waste tracts can serve as spots for solar farms, and used to cultivate bio diesel. Effective land use in this area combined with agricultural production for local and regional consumption can make good sense and can even serve to “re-green” the tourism industry if integrated into the mix and marketed correctly.

Key to the development of linkages with the above-mentioned industries is the establishment of national land use/land capability councils consisting of members from the public and private sectors as well as local, regional, and international institutions. This strategy is in keeping with the basic elements of a participatory democracy, a necessary component of good governance, and could result in the articulation and formulation of enabling policies, and the improvement of policy planning and management of sustainable plans. Of course, access to capital is vital to the facilitation of this process and therefore requires the understanding and inputs from various financial and development institutions.

While it is argued by some that countries in the region are guided by the realities of geo-politics and geo-economics and the “the urgency of now” which dictate the survival of political parties, the importance of food security is of increasing concern to domestic populations, and with rising food prices, this could become a real threat to political longevity. What appears to be the blunt survival mode of some more developed countries, which provide enormous subsidies for their local products and take aggressive actions (sometimes to the detriment of the less developed countries), in order to sustain their vested interests at home and in the global marketplace, only exacerbates the situation.

For the region, the call for a redoubling of efforts to address low productively and lack of investment in research and development should become major priorities. Innovative approaches for the region require linking the agricultural industry to other productive sectors, the implementation of modern management systems, and the injection of appropriate technologies. Best practices have to be replicated and efforts to rebuild a torn social fabric that balances effective land use with land capability is critical to the region’s future.

Dr Joseph E. Edmunds is a former Senior Research Fellow, UWI St Augustine Campus, Trinidad, Director of Research and Development, of the banana industry of the Windward Islands, and Ambassador of St Lucia to the UN, OAS, and US. Senior Associate to The Edmunds Group International and The Caribbean Research and Policy Center in Washington.


Anton E. Edmunds is the president and CEO, The Edmunds Group International (www.theedmundsgroup.com), former CEO of Caribbean Central American Action (www.c-caa.org) and Senior Project Advisor to Halcrow. Member: Latin America Council on Renewable Energy, Caribbean Association of Industry & Commerce, Caribbean Shipping Association, Caribbean Tourism Organization and Caribbean Renewable Energy Forum.

September 7, 2011

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