Latest content: Connectivity Agenda

While agriculture and fisheries are crucial sectors for food security, employment and exports (including through the tourism market) in the Caribbean, their direct contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) varies greatly. Belize, Guyana and Haiti see a larger contribution of agriculture and fisheries to GDP, whereas many of the other states have a lower contribution, with other sectors often dominating, particularly in the services-driven and industrialised (oil and gas) economies. This leads to a mean contribution of 3–5 per cent across Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries.

Bangladesh’s economy is heavily dependent on agriculture. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, agriculture, forestry and fishing contributed 11.2 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2022/23. The sector is characterised by subsistence production systems, largely dominated by small and marginal farmers.

Data could be the conduit for boosting intra-Commonwealth trade and investment as enshrined in the ‘Declaration on the Commonwealth Connectivity Agenda for Trade and Investment’. The sharing of data according to the Open Data Institute (ODI), can create social and economic value for people, organisations, and the wider economy. Ensuring data sovereignty including maintaining a secure, trusted data environment, governments have an important role to play in laying the foundations for a flourishing data-driven economy by pursuing policies that improve the flow of data and ensuring that companies who want to innovate have appropriate access to high-quality and well-maintained data.

Ghana is well positioned to tap into the potential of digitalisation across its agriculture sector. A multi-stakeholder dialogue with representatives from the sector, including digital agricultural services providers, confirmed that numerous organisations were already engaged in agricultural data management. Participants identified and shared experiences of several well-established systems and platforms for data management already operational in the country. However, they also described fragmented databases, an unwillingness to share data, operational inefficiencies, data collection fatigue, unsuited policies based on unreliable data and a data power imbalance.