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Group CEO of GraceKennedy Limited Don Wehby says that the novel coronavirus pandemic has significantly highlighted the need to strengthen intra-regional agricultural trade to bolster the Caribbean’s recovery and future development.
“We need to unite as a Caribbean region to ensure we invest in agriculture, agri-processing and manufacturing, and that we can be self-reliant,” Wehby said at the Caribbean Development Bank’s (CBD) annual meeting of the board of governors recently.
“We need to support our farmers by providing them will local financing, and to create a system of crop insurance, which is going to be very important. We have this mindset in the Caribbean that farming is for small entrepreneurs,” he continued.
He added that policies to develop tourism linkages networks will also play a part in accelerating transformations in the food and agriculture sector to build its resilience in the face of a range of challenges.
“We need to ensure that the local producers provide hotels with their goods and services… and that will have a significant impact on the [gross domestic product] growth in any country,” he said.
The CEO said, too, that GraceKennedy’s ‘mother farm’ initative is a model that must be used going forward.
Under an agreement with the then Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, the company established an agro park in Ridge Pen, St Elizabeth where it converted 110 acres of idle lands to farming plots and primarily sub-leased to farmers.
Wehby further pointed out that the pandemic has disrupted domestic food and agricultural supply chains which has led to the increase of freight rates.
“The freight rates from China pre-COVID-19 was US$2,500 per 20-foot container, it is now US$15,000 per container. What we’re talking about is a significant increase in food inflation. Every main supplier that GraceKennedy has have been seeing significant increases in basic food prices,” he stated, noting that as a result some cost will be passed on to the consumers.
The GraceKennedy Group for its first quarter ended March 31, 2021 achieved revenues of $31.39 billion, representing an increase of 8.8 per cent or $2.54 billion over the previous corresponding period. Net profit after tax was $1.84 billion, representing an increase of 26.6 per cent or $386.0 million compared to the corresponding period in 2020.
GK’s Food Trading segment also recorded growth in revenue for the period under review. GK Foods International also recorded strong growth in both revenue and profit before tax across all business units, driven by growing demand for Grace and Grace-owned products in the US, UK and Canadian markets.
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