Transformation of the agro-food sector: Lessons from the Caribbean

As we approach the twenty-first century, concepts of "health food" and "healthy food" remain paramount in American culture. Yet, what lessons have we learned? Transformation of the agro-food sector serves to demonstrate that we as consumers and social scientists need to expand our understanding of "health food" or "healthy food" to include production practices, local knowledge and technology, the political and economic milieu in which production and distribution are sustained, as well as their impact on humans and the biophysical environment. This article examines transformation of the agro-food sector in the Caribbean and its connections to the European Union and the United States markets from this perspective. In addition, this article examines the transformation of longstanding cash crops, such as sugar cane and bananas, to other food commodities. Political ecology is used to examine the agro-food sector to understand more clearly the relationship among food producers, local governments, transnational corporations, international policy makers and regional and extra-regional markets vis-a-vis the linkages they maintain. Specific attention is given to the Windward Islands where the increase in cultivated acreage and the associated loss of vegetative cover is furthering a downward spiral of environmental degradation. In the past not only has the natural environment suffered, local human populations have paid the price physically and economically.