The Jamaica Observer

JAMAICA is one of 18 regional countries which will benefit from a drawdown of approximately US$40 million from a special PetroCaribe fund aimed at helping them deal with global food security and price increases.

Jamaica's minister of agriculture, Dr Christopher Tufton - one of eight members of the technical executive secretariat of the Council of Agriculture Ministers of PetroCaribe meeting in Havana, Cuba - yesterday confirmed that the 18 countries will each have access to approximately US$2 million within weeks to support emergency food initiatives, including fertiliser availability.

"Basically, what is proposed is that in the short term, US$2 million will be allocated to each of the 18 countries which basically gives an advantage to the smaller countries to whom the US$2 million will mean more in value," Dr Tufton told the Observer in a telephone interview following a press conference announcing the proposals in Havana.

"That money will be used to target specific areas of food production and productivity, namely machinery, planting materials and feeds, training and any other critical areas," he added.

He said that in addition, each territory will submit their fertiliser needs and the secretariat will look at procuring fertiliser for the region, as opposed to individual countries sourcing.

"We also complete the terms of reference of how the PetroCaribe Funds will be administered in terms of the criteria, the focus, promoting local production, consumption and trade between member countries and ensuring that it does not conflict with other institutions like Caricom," Tufton said.

"All of this is subject to ratification by the respective countries, and there is a meeting proposed for September in Honduras where an official signing is expected to take place involving the heads of the respective member countries," he added.

Tufton said that while the overall fund is expected to reap some US$500 million by the end of 2008, the funds have just started to accumulate, following its announcement by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the PetroCaribe summit in Maracaibo in early July.

The US$40 million, which he said should be available to member countries within a few weeks following ratification of the proposals, was the initial portion.

The fund, announced to the Jamaican Parliament by Prime Minister Bruce Golding on his return from the Maracaibo summit, is an initiative by Chavez to support PetroCaribe member countries in expanding agricultural production and improve food security.

He said that Venezuela would contribute US50 cents per barrel of exported oil, which adds up to about US$760 million per year.

A special meeting of regional agricultural ministers, including Tufton, was held on July 30 in Honduras to start the process of working out how the funds would be allocated. At that meeting Jamaica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Suriname, St Vincent and the Grenadines, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Venezuela were named to the technical executive secretariat assigned the task of designing and recommending a treaty of food security and the establishment of mechanisms to manage the oil fund. Tufton will return home today.