Marketing and Distribution of Domestic Food Crops in the Caribbean: Implications for Food Security

Abstract

Marketing and distribution of domestic food crops in the Caribbean requires urgent attention in the region’s agriculture and food security debate and policy. The internal marketing and distribution is done through various informal commercial activities. The primary strategy is where farmers sell their produce to people, mainly women who sell in fresh produce markets across the country. Typically these women, known as higglers in Jamaica and hucksters in the eastern Caribbean, would go around to various farms and purchase different kinds of farm produce from farmers. Several of these higglers would then hire a truck/lorry, which would transport them to a designated market place. Some farmers now take their produce to these markets themselves, where the produce is sold in bulk to higglers or retailed to consumers. Also, an increasing number of farm families are setting up stalls on the side of major roadways, where they sell produce from their farms. Farmers who own pick-up trucks often load them with produce and park them in heavy traffic areas where consumers come to buy the produce. Other traders also purchase food from farmers for resale through this medium. The marketing and distribution of domestic foods have been identified as a major obstacle to production in the Caribbean. There is no regulated system in place, and small-scale farmers are basically left to their own devices in marketing farm produce locally.