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Caribbean Basin > Aruba + Barbados + Cayman Islands + Curacao + Dominca + Grenada + Guyana + Saint Kitts and Nevis + Saint Vincent and the Grenadines + Saint Lucia + Trinidad and Tobago

FAS/Nairobi forecasts Uganda’s coffee production in the Marketing Year (MY) 2024/25 to reach 6.9 million bags (60 kg), an increase of 40,000 bags from the previous year, due to adoption of good agricultural practices, targeted interventions to combat pest and disease outbreaks, and maturation of new high-yielding seedlings planted in recent years.

Zambia’s production of its staple crop, corn, is expected to drop by more than 50 percent in marketing year 2024/25, due to extended dry spells associated with the El Niño event. Almost a million hectares of corn have been destroyed by the drought that forced the Zambian President to declare a “National Disaster and Emergency”.

Zambia’s production of its staple crop, corn, is expected to grow by 23 percent to 3.3 million metric tons (MMT) in marketing year (MY) 2023/24, mainly due to an upsurge in planted area.

FAS/Nairobi forecasts Uganda’s marketing year (MY) 2023/24 coffee production will increase 4 percent to 6.85 million 60 kilogram bags due to good rainfall and the maturation of new high-yielding Robusta seedlings planted in 2019.

With international funding to develop and implement biosafety regulatory systems drying up in 2019, Caribbean biosafety regulatory efforts remain in idle mode. The region is seeking further funding from the United Nations Environmental Program/Global...

Despite lower production in marketing year (MY) 2022/23, Zambia’s production of its staple crop, corn, will be sufficient to meet domestic demand. Zambia’s corn crop is forecast to decline by 25 percent to 2.7 million metric tons (MMT) in MY 2022/23, after producing a record crop 3.6 MMT in MY 2021/22.

On May 5, 2022, trade and finance ministers from East African Community (EAC) member countries agreed to raise minimum common external tariffs from 25 to 35 percent on several agricultural products.

FAS/Nairobi forecasts an increase in Uganda’s marketing year (MY) 2022/23 coffee production to a new record of 6.65 million bags due to favorable weather and recently established plantations coming into full production. Arabica production is anticipated to decrease by 5.2 percent to 900,000 bags due to cyclical yield variation.

Biosafety regulatory efforts in the Caribbean remain stalled, and it is yet to be seen whether countries can regain the will and secure the international financing required to fully implement their National Biosafety Frameworks in a harmonized manner.

Eager to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind it, the Caribbean is doing all it can to attract visitors and kick-start its tourism sector in 2021.

Zambia produced its largest corn crop on record in the 2021/22 MY. This bumper corn crop of 3.6 million tons follows on Zambia’s third largest corn crop of 3.4 million tons produced in the 2020/21 MY.