Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute

• Author: Duke Pollard
• Profession: Sitting senior judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the highest appellate municipal court of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
• Pages: 258-268

258 THE CARICOM SYSTEM

13

THE CARIBBEAN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

AND DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE

The establishment of the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute

(CARDI) in 1975 must be appreciated in the context of the perceptions of the regional

political directorate regarding the critical role of agriculture in the economic and social

development of the Caribbean Community. This perception was mirrored in the

provisions of Article 48 of the Treaty of 1973 which addressed the marketing of

agricultural products and of Article 49 which addressed the rationalisation of agricultural

production. In the latter context, Member States of the Community agreed to establish

a scheme for the rationalisation of agricultural production which would strive, inter

alia, for optimum utilisation of agricultural resources, integration of regional agricultural

development, import substitution of agricultural products, diversification of agricultural

production and enhanced exports to extra-regional markets.

Viewed in this light, the objectives of CARDI set out in Article 3 of its constituent

instrument may be seen as facilitating the achievement of the objectives of the agricultural

programme the Community established for itself. These objectives of CARDI include

satisfying the research and development needs of regional agriculture and those of

Member States individually; extending the application of new technologies in production,

processing, storage and distribution of agricultural products and coordinating the research

and development efforts of member States in the area of agriculture. In effect, CARDI

was intended to bridge the gap between academic research and the commercialisation

of discoveries and inventions in the area of agriculture. For this to be achieved

successfully there was need for considerably more interface between CARDI, the

University of the West Indies and the manufacturing and industrial communities of the

region. The absence of such interface probably explains the lack of any significant

innovations by CARDI in the area of research and development and the

commercialisation of discoveries.

CARDI was the product of protracted institutional change and development which

encompassed the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture (ICTA) in 1947, the Regional

Research Centre (RRC) in 1955 and the Faculty of Agriculture, University College of

the West Indies (UCWI) in 1960. The Mission appointed by the Conference of Heads

of Government of the Caribbean Community under the leadership of Dr. Lewis Campbell

to undertake an examination of regional agricultural research recommended the

establishment of CARDI as an autonomous research institution separate from the

University of the West Indies of which the RRC was part. Since its inception CARDI