About CABA

The Caribbean Agri-business Association (CABA) is a “for Development not-for profit Company” established by agri-business stakeholders in CARICOM, to provide a private sector mechanism to facilitate organized, co-ordinated planning and development of regional  programmes and projects in the agri-business sector in CARICOM.

CABA was registered under the laws of Trinidad & Tobago in 2000 and Jamaica in 2005.

As a “For Development Company” CABA is comprised of members and not of shareholders and cannot disburse profits to individual persons or members, but must re-invest the profits to further its aims of developing and expanding the agri-business sector in the Caribbean.

The association is comprised of Ordinary Members and Associate Members.

The Ordinary members are voting members, drawn for the national umbrella/chapter associations and regional agri-business associations e.g regional thematic agri-food chain association’s (e.g agro-processors, Hotel & Restaurants, supermarkets), Regional Commodity association’s e.g cassava, poultry, herbal, hot pepper.

The Associate members are non-voting members and comprise firms and individuals who are involved in the sector or related areas.

The organization is led by a Board of Directors drawn from its membership, and currently comprises:

• President- Vassel Stewart – Trinidad & Trinidad/ Agro-processors
• Vice President- James Paul- Barbados/ Pork Association
• Secretary– Dunstan Demille- St. Lucia/ Supermarkets
• Dr. Keith Amiel- Jamaica / Poultry Association
• Guyana- Fitzroy Fletcher- Guyana/ Agro-processors
• Dominica- Darwin Telemaque/ Fresh Produce Exporters
• Grenada- CEO- Grenada/ Importer Distributor/Retailer

The organization’ management team comprises:

• Vassel Stewart- President –MBA, Dip. Food Tech.; Bsc.Agriculture.
• Ramgopaul Roop– Regional Administrator– MBA; B.A; Strategic Management & HR; Dip Agriculture; Dip; Construction Engineering; Cert. Institute of Administrative Management (IAM)
• Torin Gilalta– Project Manager – Bsc. Agribusiness (Major), Entrepreneurship (Minor), Communications & Extension (Minor) (In-complete)

The organization is recognized by governments and agricultural development agencies in the Region, through the CARICOM Secretariat at the level of COTED, as a private sector medium for co-coordinating private sector involvement in the development and execution of  regional agri-business programmes policies, and projects and for facilitating sectoral dialogue and relationships aimed at increasing investment and trade.

The Association has under the various regional agricultural development programmes including the Regional Food & Nutrition Security Policy (RFNSP)) and the Priority Commodities Value-chain Development   (PCVD) CABA specific responsibility for leading the technical support for the following:

1. Facilitating the organization and co-ordination of the SME Sub-sector 
2. Development of the regional herbs and spices industry

In seeking to carry out its developmental role, CABA develops and or undertake strategies/programmes and projects and works closely with its private sector members, governments and other national and regional development organizations in their review, approval and implementation.

Where the projects are of a development/non-commercial nature, it then seeks funding from governments and development partners for their implementation, where the strategies or projects are commercial in nature, it assist its private sector partners in sourcing financing and technical services to improve their operations and increase profitability.

CABA is, or is seeking to execute its mandate through the provision of the following strategic services:

1. Sector Organisation and Advocacy Service

In seeking to execute its responsibility for facilitating the organization of the SME’sub-sector CABA provides support for the establishment and operation of National and regional commodity (cassava, herbs and spices etc) and thematic (agro-processors, input suppliers, consumers etc) which are themselves comprised of various local commodity or thematic industry associations. The associations provide avenues for industry stakeholders to organize themselves at various geographic levels to allow them to collectively plan and execute projects that impact on their individual operations.

Under this service CABA representatives sit as a member of regional and national sectoral, industry/commodity, programmes and project development and implementation Committees, participates in seminar, workshop and conferences and speaks or writes publicly on various issues affecting the sector

2. Information Management & Exchange Service

This service is comprised on 3 components:

1. The agricarib.org website
2. The CABA On-line Directory
3. The CABA Social Network

The regional website agricarib.org is a central hub for information gathering and exchange including, statistics, trends, agribusiness news, trade and investment opportunities, policy issues, investment profiles etc.

The Online Directory is a central searchable repository of profiles of agribusiness stakeholders inclusive of buyers, sellers of products and services including members and non-members.

The CABA Social Network consist of existing social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, D-Groups etc, where CABA members can form “communities” and meet to exchange information and communicate on various issues.

3. Joint Marketing and Online Marketplace Service

This involves the provision of support for the establishment and operation of a regional export marketing company owned by SME’s food processing firms. The company, namely the Caribbean Agribusiness Export Company (CABEXCO) will allow SMEs to collaborate, share knowledge, share infra-structure where practicable and pool resources in attacking markets particularly in promoting their products under a common brand or quality Mark.

The online market place will be a global market place providing a online store, with multi-vendor, multi-currency, commonly supported payment gateways, to allow members to reach larger market and to increase profits. This will be supported by product distribution centres located in major international gateways in North America, Europe and Asia.

CABA will be a small shareholder in the company to provide a source of sustainable income to the association.

4. Education & Certification Service

This programme seeks to transfer agribusiness knowledge to stakeholders based on established industry standards, and best practices and certification.

Core Program – Essential Agribusiness Skills

The Certified Agribusiness Entrepreneur (CAE) Program will be an international industry credential that validates and develops the agribusiness professional.

CABA will develop a Common Body of Knowledge based on essential learning objectives which will be used to form its Official Curriculum and Courseware. The programme will cover training in areas such as;

• Healthy, Safe and Ethical Farming (Organic & Fair Trade Farming)
• Business planning for Agribusiness Professionals
• Agroprocessing Basics
• Information Technology Essentials

In executing the programme CABA is partnering with the International Business Training Association (IBTA) and Prometric IBTA is the owner of the Certified Business Professional (CBP) designation and certification marks. IBTA’s CBP Certification is the fastest growing soft-skills certification for business professionals with partners in the U.S., Canada, UK, Middle East, Africa, Central America, South America, the Caribbean, India, China, Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, and Australia.

5. CABA Conferences and Festivals Management Services

Under this programme CABA organizes conferences/workshops/fora in collaboration with other development agencies e.g CARICOM, CTA, FAO, IICA, CARDI, to provide more direct exchange of information, knowledge, experiences and build relationships.

The Programme also involves the execution of national food festivals and exhibitions aimed at show casing and promoting Caribbean agri-business products, technologies, services, cuisines and creating opportunities for new product development and the attraction of investments.

6. Value-chain and Business Development Services

A fundamental component of CABA’s responsible is that of providing value-chain development services at all levels of the sector.

At the sectoral level, CABA conducts analysis of various industries to determine their existing and or potential competitiveness in Member States, and on the basis of this, advises governments on industries for priority development.

At the industry level, CABA undertakes more detailed analysis to better understand the nature, strengths and weaknesses of the actors in the industry/commodity value chain and develop policies, strategies and investment profiles to guide governments, development agencies and private sector stakeholders in the improvement of competitiveness in the value chains..

It is under this component CABA carries out its responsibility for providing leadership in the development of the herbs and spices industry. 

At firm level, CABA conducts analysis of the value chain of SME firms and provides advice and technical services to assist them in improving efficiency to capture larger share of the value chain and in exploiting market opportunities and in attracting investments.

The Caribbean AgriBusiness Association (CABA) represents the Caribbean Region’s first agricultural association. It was officially established in May 1998.

CABA was founded as an integrated and vital agricultural mechanism to provide a collective negotiating voice for the agribusiness sub-sector and further stimulate agribusiness growth and trade in the Region.

CABA is dedicated to promoting a common agribusiness interest through concentrated and consolidated action, and to be an effective advocate of agribusiness interest before governments in the Region