Trade Liberalization and Food Import Dependency

Abstract

This chapter provides a comprehensive literature review that summarizes the main findings on trade liberalization in the Caribbean region and its main financial, food security and health-related consequences. Decrease of local food production and greater reliance on food imports caused important economic and social challenges in the Caribbean countries in terms of increased public debt and food-import bill, increased rural poverty and unemployment rates, and change in nutrition and food-demand choices. However, evidences on agricultural development suggest that while the Caribbean region, because of resource constraints and lack of economy of scale, will not necessarily achieve a substantial level of competitive import substitution, even a relatively small level of food import replacement with local crops will make a significant contribution in terms of economic and social development.