Bridgetown, Barbados – November 25, 2008: – Barbadians could be paying less for some agricultural products from next year as stakeholders in the sector continue to monitor input prices around the world.
The tentative assurance has come from Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Agriculture Society, James Paul. He says the cost of some inputs has been falling.
“While some costs have actually come down and hopefully next year the sector will be looking to at least pass on some of those costs to consumers, we still have to be very careful because you know the signs do not look good on the international market, because you have a very unstable picture in the world today in terms of world economies, prices themselves are still relatively volatile especially for agriculture inputs, therefore with that plus the fact that we’re still negotiating free trade agreements a lot of countries in the region, even in Barbados we have to still determine where our competitive position is.”
Mr. Paul told CBC News stakeholders in the sector want to be involved in the upcoming negotiations for the Canada-Caribbean free trade agreement.
He says they have learnt a lot from the Economic Partnership Agreement with Europe and want to ensure that certain safeguards are in place for the sector.
“We know exactly what we can actually give. We are satisfied that we’re going to have to use EPA as a benchmark in terms of negotiations with the Canadians. We are hoping of course to be very involved in that process, because we do not want to sacrifice a lot of the gains that we have made in agriculture over the last three, four years.”
