The Caribbean’s heavy dependence on imported food is increasingly being viewed not only as a threat to food security, but also as a multibillion-dollar investment opportunity for regional agriculture and food production.
According to Caribbean Export, CARIFORUM countries spend approximately $6 billion annually on food imports, while some countries depend on imports for as much as 90 percent of the calories they consume. The situation leaves the region vulnerable to global supply disruptions, rising transportation costs, hurricanes and other climate-related shocks.
At the same time, efforts by Caribbean governments to reduce that dependence could create a substantial new market for regional producers.
CARICOM has been pursuing a regional strategy aimed at reducing the Caribbean’s food import bill by 25 percent. Based on the estimated $6 billion currently spent on imports, replacing a quarter of those purchases with regional production could represent a market of approximately $1.5 billion.
Caribbean Export says attracting sufficient investment will be critical if regional producers are to take advantage of that opportunity.
One of the challenges has traditionally been the relatively small size of individual Caribbean economies. Agricultural and food-production projects on a single island may not always be large enough to attract major development finance institutions and institutional investors.
Caribbean Export argues that treating the Caribbean as a larger integrated market could help overcome that limitation by allowing projects and investors to operate on a regional rather than strictly national scale.
Examples of new approaches are already emerging.
Barbados has introduced a commercial-scale indoor vertical farming operation that uses LED lighting, automated nutrient systems and closed-loop hydroponics. According to information provided by Caribbean Export, the system can produce substantially more crops per square foot than conventional agriculture while using up to 95 percent less water.
Because production takes place indoors, crops are also less exposed to hurricanes, drought and other weather conditions. Such technology could be particularly relevant for small Caribbean islands where available agricultural land and freshwater resources are limited.
Guyana, meanwhile, is using its considerably larger land resources to expand livestock production. The Guyana Livestock Development Authority has been using reproductive technologies, including artificial insemination and embryo transfer, to expand Blackbelly sheep production.
The longer-term ambition is to strengthen Guyana’s position as a major regional producer of mutton and breeding stock, replacing some of the meat currently imported into the Caribbean from outside the region.
Caribbean Export Executive Director Dr. Damie Sinanan said regional cooperation will be essential to attract the scale of investment necessary to transform Caribbean agriculture.
“By uniting as a single Caribbean, we create the critical mass and market size required to pull in transformational global capital,” Sinanan said.
He argued that modernizing agricultural infrastructure will require significant investment but could simultaneously strengthen climate resilience, create higher-value employment and expand intra-Caribbean trade.
The issue will be among the investment opportunities promoted through the Caribbean Investment Forum 2026. The forum is intended to connect Caribbean projects with development finance institutions, private equity firms and institutional investors.
For Curaçao and other highly import-dependent islands, increased regional production could have broader implications than agriculture alone. Developing stronger supply chains with producers elsewhere in the Caribbean could reduce dependence on distant suppliers while improving regional food security and keeping a greater share of food expenditure within Caribbean economies.
The challenge now is whether Caribbean countries can develop production, financing, transportation and trade infrastructure quickly enough to transform the region’s enormous food import bill into a viable market for Caribbean producers.
Source: Caribbean Investment Forum