The Protein Sovereignty Index

Regional assessment

Central America & Caribbean

We assess Central America and the Caribbean as Dependent (40.1). The region produces about 56 per cent of the protein its 93 million people eat and about 67 per cent of its animal protein,[1][11] which reads as competence until the feed is traced: 2.05 million tonnes of imported soybean meal arriving 95 per cent from a single supplier, alongside 8.56 million tonnes of imported maize of which 7.90 million tonnes goes to livestock.[1][3] What binds is upstream rather than acreage, and it sits on top of the highest physical shock exposure of any entity, no strategic reserves worth the name, and an access and affordability pillar in which roughly 43 per cent of the population cannot afford a healthy diet.

Covers: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, The Bahamas, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis

The protein system

The region runs two distinct food systems. Central America produces, on a maize and bean base: 4.15 million tonnes of maize in 2023, dry beans at 84 per cent self-sufficiency, eggs at 98 per cent, and a protein self-sufficiency ratio of 60 per cent.[1][4] The Caribbean purchases: 50 per cent self-sufficiency across the larger islands, 18 per cent across the seven smallest states, and six members at a cereal import dependency ratio of 100 per cent.[1][2]

Consumption is not deprived on average. Protein supply runs from 45.9 grams per person per day in Haiti to 115.4 in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, against a world figure of 92.5.[2] What the average hides is where the calories come from. Feed-intensive products supply 35.6 per cent of regional protein and fish only 3.3 per cent,[1] and 60 per cent of the region's maize supply is fed to livestock with two thirds of that maize imported.[1] The animal protein industry is, in substance, imported grain converted into chicken inside the region.

Payment for the imported half comes from outside the food system entirely. Food imports equal 661 per cent of Antigua and Barbuda's merchandise exports and 149 per cent of Haiti's.[2] The islands buy protein out of tourism receipts, the mainland out of remittances running at 30.1 per cent of GDP in Honduras.[8] Neither earning is a food asset, and both are controlled elsewhere.

Durable domestic capacity: 44

Quantitative score 50, adjusted down 6 points

The quantitative position is mid-range globally and far above the Gulf, but the base is eroding precisely where the land sits. Cuba holds 26 per cent of the region's arable land and the largest holding per person, and its rice output fell from 461,000 tonnes in 2018 to 84,000 in 2024, pigmeat from 236,000 to 17,000 tonnes.[4] Costa Rican rice output fell 64 per cent and Honduran 61 per cent over the same period.[4] In Haiti, armed-group control of the Artibonite has removed the state's ability to protect production while 52 per cent of the analysed population sits in IPC Phase 3 or worse in the March to June 2026 projection update, with more than 1.8 million of them in Phase 4.[21][22] We deducted six points for that documented deterioration and for active conflict degrading nominal capacity.

Two findings cap the pillar further. Caribbean dietary energy supply sits at 101 per cent of requirement, so the subregion carries no calorie buffer, and undernourishment there is 16.7 per cent against a world figure of 8.1.[2] Fisheries offer little relief: 41 per cent of assessed stocks in FAO Area 31 are overfished,[40] and Caribbean landings are 93,000 tonnes with aquaculture at 20,000 tonnes, for 39.9 million people.[7]

Resource headroom: 45

Quantitative score 47, adjusted down 2 points

This is the region's least bad pillar and its most unequally distributed. Mainland Central America holds some of the most water-abundant farmland on earth, with renewable internal freshwater of 37,891 cubic metres per person per year in Belize and 23,209 in Nicaragua.[9] The islands hold the opposite: 283 cubic metres in Barbados and 560 in Antigua and Barbuda,[9] and of ten English-speaking Caribbean small island states only four are classed as water secure above the 1,700 cubic metre threshold, with Grenada and Saint Lucia sitting on it.[42] That land and water base is backed by a genuinely functioning credit channel in the same members: FAOSTAT's agriculture orientation index for credit, where parity with agriculture's GDP share reads 1.00, stands at 1.22 in Panama, 0.84 in Belize, 0.75 in Costa Rica and 0.72 in Nicaragua, against 0.05 or below across the Eastern Caribbean small islands and no computable series at all for Cuba, the Bahamas or Haiti.[63]

Cuban official land-use statistics put only 43 per cent of the country's agricultural area under cultivation in 2017, leaving 57 per cent of roughly 6.3 million hectares idle, with no tenure category above 56 per cent utilisation,[48] but that idle land cannot be credited as latent headroom: Cuba has no plausible path, capital, machinery or imported inputs, to bringing it into production. Fertiliser import value has fallen from US$75 million to US$43-44 million, herbicide imports are down 80 per cent, agricultural aviation has halted and nitrogen use is down to 5,000 tonnes,[5][17] while rice output has collapsed 82 per cent and pigmeat 93 per cent since 2018.[4] The idle land is unrealised potential rather than scored headroom. The rest of the region tests differently. Most members irrigate under 4 per cent of arable land, and the arable-land-weighted regional share has been essentially flat for two decades, 3.7 per cent in 2000-2002 to 3.6 per cent in 2021-2023,[2][6] so rainfall does not survive a canícula when almost nothing is irrigated. Cropland and arable land per person have fallen 25 to 31 per cent regionally since 2000 as population growth outran a roughly flat land base, and Nicaragua's own arable-land area, one of the four we credit for endowment, is down 21.6 per cent on the last available agricultural census.[6][11] What remains admissible on the adjustment is this downward pressure, net of the credit finding above: the headroom being used is taken from forest as cattle push into the agricultural frontier; CARICOM's flagship '25 by 2025' production programme delivered a real but partial 24 per cent gain against a target it missed and pushed to 2030;[27][28] FEWS NET recorded primera planting in the Dry Corridor delayed by up to 40 days in the 2025 season after prolonged dry spells[25] and names El Niño as the dominant driver of below-normal rainfall into January 2027;[23] and the canal authority has cut the Panama Canal neo-Panamax maximum draft three times in 2026, from 50.0 feet to 49.5 on 1 July, 49.0 on 24 July and 48.5 on 15 August.[55] Together these take the pillar from 47 to 45.

The coastal base is also degrading, with the University of South Florida's July 2025 outlook estimating 38 million tonnes of sargassum across the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf, the largest accumulation since satellite monitoring began in 2011.[43]

Import exposure: 36

Quantitative score 38, adjusted down 2 points

About 44 per cent of regional protein supply is imported, rising to roughly 82 per cent across the seven smallest island states.[1] Volume is not the worst of it. Supplier concentration is extreme and points one way: a Herfindahl-Hirschman index of 9,061 on soybean meal with 95.1 per cent from the United States, 7,453 on chicken meat, 4,764 on maize and 4,722 on wheat.[3] Cuba imported 239,400 tonnes of American chicken meat in 2024 from the country that embargoes it,[3] and the Dominican Republic alone bought US$2.2 billion of American farm goods.[15]

We deducted two points because a Herfindahl index treats the concentrated supplier as a neutral commercial counterparty. The same country supplies 95 per cent of the soybean meal and controls the remittance flows financing it, the migration policy generating them and the tariff schedule the food arrives under; the 1 per cent excise on cash remittances effective 1 January 2026 shows willingness to use those levers,[37][38] as does the concentration of removal flights, 41 per cent of the United States total in March 2026 going to Guatemala and Honduras, against 45 per cent in February and about 31 per cent in April.[54][56]

The deduction is small because substitution has already been shown to work in practice. The region's food lanes carry no exposure to any maritime chokepoint, and the Panama Canal it hosts kept operating at 35 daily transits through the Hormuz crisis, up 5.2 per cent year on year.[46] Substitution is demonstrated: the Dominican Republic moved 75 per cent of its maize to Brazil, Guyanese rice supplies 52 to 97 per cent of Eastern Caribbean requirements, and Central America sources 26.7 per cent of its agri-food imports regionally, though the Caribbean manages only 9.2 per cent.[3]

Upstream dependence: 29

Quantitative score 33, adjusted down 4 points

This is the binding constraint and the lowest pillar. Reporting members imported 2.05 million tonnes of soybean meal at 95.1 per cent single-supplier concentration and 8.56 million tonnes of maize, against domestic maize self-sufficiency of 36 per cent and wheat self-sufficiency of zero.[1][3] That structure is worse than importing the finished meat, because it commits domestic capital that is stranded the moment the feed stops.

On fertiliser the picture splits sharply and misleadingly. Trinidad and Tobago produced 647,000 tonnes of nitrogen nutrient and exported 690,000 tonnes in 2024, the world's largest ammonia exporter with roughly 15 to 20 per cent of the ocean-traded market, making the region a net nitrogen exporter.[5][33] Central America produced no nitrogen, phosphate or potash at all, and the region imported 194,000 tonnes of phosphate and 332,000 tonnes of potash nutrient.[5] We deducted four points on three grounds the ratios cannot show: no CARICOM mechanism directs Trinidadian nitrogen to regional food production; the asset is eroding, with gas utilisation down from 3.5 to 2.4 billion cubic feet per day since 2015, ammonia exports down from 4.6 to 3.6 million tonnes since 2019, and replacement volume depending on the Dragon field, which lies wholly in Venezuelan waters and can be developed only under a United States Treasury licence already granted, revoked and reissued once;[34][57] and Cuba shows what upstream failure does here, with nitrogen use at 5,000 tonnes and rice output collapsing 82 per cent rather than degrading gracefully.[4][5][17]

The 2026 fertiliser shock landed directly on that exposure: the World Bank index rose more than 12 per cent in the first quarter, urea passed US$850 per tonne in April at 80 per cent above February, and the index is forecast to rise more than 30 per cent across the year.[35] Honduran fertiliser costs were already 6 to 18 per cent above the five-year average in January, depending on the formulation.[24] Genetics rest on two global primary breeders, though 33.3 million live birds traded in 2023 show real multiplication capacity in Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala.[3]

Access and affordability: 48

Quantitative score 51, adjusted down 3 points

On the World Bank/FAO Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet series, we estimate that approximately 43 per cent of the region's population could not afford a healthy diet in 2023-2024, a population-weighted computation across the twelve members with country-level data, covering 79 per cent of the region's people.[59] The FAO regional statistics annex gives a broadly consistent cross-check at the subregional level, with 50 per cent unaffordable across the Caribbean in 2022;[41] FAO's own Mesoamerica figure of 26.3 per cent is not comparable, since that grouping includes Mexico's 128 million people at a much lower share, and our own weighting of the six Central American members with data, El Salvador being absent from the series, gives approximately 39 per cent.[41][59] The two members that diverge most are Haiti, at 87.9 per cent, the highest reading in the hemisphere, and Saint Lucia, at 7.4 per cent. Saint Lucia's low figure has little to do with domestic production, which is minimal; it reflects tourism-linked wages that keep imported food within reach.[59]

Undernourishment and stunting confirm that affordability failure is concentrated rather than diffuse. Undernourishment runs at 5.4 per cent in Central America against 16.7 in the Caribbean and 51.4 in Haiti,[2] while stunting is overwhelmingly a Guatemalan problem, at 44.6 to 46.5 per cent of children under five, the highest rate in the hemisphere, against 4.6 to 6.7 per cent in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.[2][47][60] Prices compound the gap: Caribbean food prices have risen a cumulative 55 to 60 per cent since 2018,[36] and Honduran white maize was 40 per cent above its year-earlier price in January 2026.[24] Physical access fails outright in Haiti, where armed-group control of the Artibonite blocks roads rather than merely raising prices,[21] and intermittently across the small islands, where hurricanes cut market access for weeks regardless of income.[12][18] We deduct three points because Cuba, whose documented foreign-exchange collapse makes its true unaffordability almost certainly higher than the regional average, is entirely absent from the underlying data.

Shock endurance: 39

Quantitative score 34, adjusted up 5 points

The region absorbs more physical shocks than any other entity in the index and holds almost nothing in store. Hurricane Melissa caused US$8.8 billion of physical damage in Jamaica in October 2025, 41 per cent of 2024 GDP,[12] with J$29.5 billion of agricultural loss across 41,390 hectares, more than 70,000 farmers and about 1.25 million animals.[13][14] Hurricane Beryl cost Grenada 16.5 per cent of 2023 GDP and destroyed 98 per cent of banana and plantain production in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.[18][19] Hurricanes Oscar and Rafael affected about 800,000 Cubans and collapsed Cuba's grid in late 2024.[20]

Against that, the largest strategic reserve we could document is roughly 45,000 quintals of beans held by Honduras's IHMA,[49] and Guatemala has no formal purchase-and-hold policy. The region entered 2026 stressed rather than rested: 3.2 million of 7.6 million people, 42 per cent, were food insecure across the English and Dutch-speaking Caribbean in June 2025 and unchanged on 2024, with 30 per cent skipping meals, 6 per cent going a full day without eating and 65 per cent spending savings to buy food.[26] The Caribbean faces the highest cost of a healthy diet of any subregion in Latin America and the Caribbean, itself the world's most expensive region, at 5.16 PPP dollars per person per day,[41] and fiscal capacity spans a thirteenfold range from Haiti to Panama.[10] Ordinary volatility already causes serious stress, which is the definition of the lowest band.

Crisis purchasing power is the one component of endurance that is not close to the floor. Reserve cover ranges from 7.4 months of imports in Guatemala and 6.8 in Haiti down to 2.0 in Panama and 2.1 in El Salvador,[61] and only those two members and Saint Lucia, of the eighteen with data, sit below the IMF's conventional three-month adequacy benchmark. Fiscal space is thinner: El Salvador carries central government debt of 107.3 per cent of GDP,[62] and no member in this assessment could be shown at source quality to hold a social-protection system able to scale benefits quickly in a crisis, a gap that is recorded rather than credited. That strength is not enough to lift the pillar on its own, before the five-point qualitative uplift below.

We credited five points for three funded, operating mechanisms. Remittances at 16 to 30 per cent of GDP across six members rose through COVID-19 and the 2022 price spike and kept growing into 2026 despite the new excise.[8][39] CCRIF's parametric cover delivered US$91.9 million to Jamaica within weeks of Melissa, faster than any sovereign borrowing.[32] And 2.18 million tonnes of regional cassava gives a calorie substitution route in the two countries where protein has failed.[4] The uplift stops short of the maximum because the largest buffer is under active policy pressure.

Trajectory

The direction is flat rather than improving. CARICOM's 25 by 2025 target to cut the regional food import bill by a quarter, against a baseline above US$6 billion, was missed and pushed to 2030,[27][28] though the region recorded roughly a 24 per cent increase in food production between 2022 and late 2024.[27] Three credible near-term movers exist: Guyana's Tacama savannah corn and soya programme, which cultivated 12,000 acres in 2024 against a stated target of 25,000 acres twice a year and is aimed at livestock feed self-sufficiency and regional supply, the one intervention addressing the actual binding constraint;[31][58] the CARICOM cargo ferry pilot using Trinidad and Tobago's Galleons Passage, which attacks the trade cost keeping Caribbean internal sourcing at 9.2 per cent;[3][30] and CARICOM's real-time monitoring dashboard across 11 states, which substitutes information for reserves the region does not hold.[29]

The 2026 environment works against all three. The energy and fertiliser shock transmitted quickly to a region importing nearly all its fuel,[36] the remittance excise erodes the main household buffer,[37] NOAA's below-normal hurricane outlook arrives with an El Niño that raises Dry Corridor drought and canal water risk instead,[44][46] and Caribbean shipping carries elevated war-risk premiums after the January 2026 operation in Venezuela.[50] The lever that matters most is a regional feed-grain supply with contracted offtake and a mechanism directing Trinidadian nitrogen into CARICOM agriculture. Parametric insurance reduces the cost of shocks; it does not change what the region depends on.

Country notes

Guatemala. Largest maize producer at 2.26 million tonnes yet importing 2.02 million;[3][4] its failure is nutritional, at 44.6 per cent stunting on the 2024 modelled estimate and 46.5 per cent measured in the 2014-2015 ENSMI,[2][47] with 2.0 to 2.49 million needing assistance in 2026.[23]

Honduras. Among the index's most concentrated profiles, at 99.7 per cent of maize and 100 per cent of soybean meal from one supplier in 2024;[3] the 2023-24 shrimp collapse removed a line that paid for food.[51]

El Salvador. Fifty per cent protein self-sufficiency and the most regionally integrated food economy in the index, at 45.5 per cent intraregional sourcing.[1][3]

Nicaragua. The strongest capacity position and only significant protein exporter, at 70 per cent self-sufficiency and 116,000 tonnes of beef exports, with the highest Central American undernourishment at 17.3 per cent.[1][2][3]

Costa Rica. Animal-protein self-sufficiency of 80 per cent on total protein self-sufficiency of 56 per cent, with maize production of 8,000 tonnes against 1.07 million imported.[1][3][4]

Panama. The most single-sourced member, at 99.8 per cent of maize from one supplier,[3] and host to the region's chokepoint, whose binding constraint is now hydrological: the 2023-24 drought cut daily transits from a pre-drought 34 to 36 down to 24,[45] and the neo-Panamax maximum draft fell in three steps in 2026 to 48.5 feet.[55][46]

Belize. On the indicators the most self-sufficient member, at 13.2 per cent cereal import dependency with the highest freshwater endowment;[2][9] its reported catch is open-registry attribution.[7]

Cuba. The most severe active failure and largest arable holding: rice down 82 per cent since 2018, nitrogen use at 5,000 tonnes, and 57 per cent of the agricultural area uncultivated on the most recent retrievable official position, for 2017,[4][5][48][53] with up to 37.8 per cent of the population below 2,100 calories.[17]

Dominican Republic. The best-performing large Caribbean member and the only one to diversify a major feed line, moving 75 per cent of maize to Brazil;[3] domestic maize covers under 5 per cent of use.[16]

Haiti. Severely constrained across every pillar: 45.9 grams of protein per person per day, 5.83 million in IPC Phase 3 or worse in the March to June 2026 projection update, 86.7 per cent food insecure.[2][21][22]

Jamaica. The clearest endurance test here, with US$8.8 billion of damage against a US$91.9 million payout;[12][32] chicken runs at 84 per cent self-sufficiency on imported grain.[3][52]

Trinidad and Tobago. The sharpest contradiction in the region: the world's largest ammonia exporter, with roughly 15 to 20 per cent of the ocean-traded market, on 100 per cent cereal import dependency and a declining gas feedstock.[1][2][33][34]

The Bahamas. The region's most supplier-concentrated food system at 85.5 per cent United States sourcing, on 15 per cent protein self-sufficiency.[1][2][3]

Barbados. The most water-scarce state in the index at 283 cubic metres per person, offset by the highest irrigation coverage at 12.6 per cent,[2][9] and the most institutionally active member.[30]

Saint Lucia. Sixteen per cent protein self-sufficiency on the region's lowest arable land per person, 0.015 hectares, with a single-supplier animal protein chain.[1][3][6]

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The highest protein supply in the region, 115.4 grams per person per day, on 7 per cent animal-protein self-sufficiency;[1][2] Beryl destroyed 98 per cent of banana production.[19]

Grenada. Beryl's worst-hit state at 16.5 per cent of GDP,[18] yet better diversified than most small islands and with the best Eastern Caribbean food-insecurity trend.[2][3]

Antigua and Barbuda. The weakest capacity position in the index at 6 per cent protein self-sufficiency, with food imports at 661 per cent of merchandise exports.[1][2][9]

Dominica. The least measured member, absent from the current Food Balance Sheets release altogether,[1] with the Caribbean's highest intraregional sourcing at 37.2 per cent.[3]

Saint Kitts and Nevis. The smallest member, at 3 per cent protein self-sufficiency, effectively zero for animal protein, under absolute water scarcity.[1][2][9]

Country notes

Guatemala
The region's largest population at 18.7 million and its largest maize producer at 2.26 million tonnes (2024), yet it still imports 2.02 million tonnes of maize and 586,000 tonnes of soybean meal, 93 per cent of the latter from the United States. Poultry meat runs at 75 per cent self-sufficiency and dry beans are largely domestic. Its defining failure is nutritional rather than agricultural: 44.6 per cent of children under five are stunted on the 2024 modelled estimate, against 46.5 per cent measured in the 2014-2015 ENSMI, the highest rate in the hemisphere, and 53.0 per cent of the population reports moderate or severe food insecurity despite 71.9 grams of protein supply per person per day. FEWS NET expects 2.0 to 2.49 million people to need food assistance between June and September 2026 after near-total maize and bean losses in the Dry Corridor. Remittances at 19.1 per cent of GDP finance the import bill and now carry the 1 per cent US excise.
Honduras
Among the most concentrated import profiles in the index: 99.7 per cent of maize, 100 per cent of soybean meal, 100 per cent of wheat, 100 per cent of imported chicken meat and 99 per cent of rice come from the United States in 2024. Poultry self-sufficiency is high at 94 per cent but rests entirely on that feed line, and domestic rice output fell from 60,000 to 23,000 tonnes between 2018 and 2024. White maize was 40 per cent above the prior year and fertiliser 12 to 18 per cent above the five-year average in January 2026, with 500,000 to 749,999 people needing assistance in the June to August peak. Its IHMA bean reserve of roughly 45,000 quintals is the largest strategic stock we could document anywhere in the region, and it is trivial. Remittances at 30.1 per cent of GDP (2025) are the highest in the region and the household buffer of last resort. The 2023-24 collapse of shrimp exports after the diplomatic switch from Taiwan to China cost more than 14,000 jobs and removed a foreign-exchange line that paid for food.
El Salvador
Protein self-sufficiency of 50 per cent with a cereal import dependency ratio of 54 per cent, better diversified than its neighbours on maize (66 per cent United States, 30 per cent Brazil) and chicken meat (56 per cent United States, 19 per cent Belgium), and the most regionally integrated food economy in the index, with 45.5 per cent of agri-food imports sourced from within the region. Domestic maize at 785,000 tonnes and dry beans at 100,000 tonnes give a real staple base, but rice production has fallen to 11,000 tonnes and animal protein supply is only 35.9 grams per person per day. It is also one of two regional hubs for live-poultry multiplication supplying neighbours. Remittances at 27.5 per cent of GDP (2025) make it one of the two most remittance-dependent economies in the hemisphere, and its exposure to the new US cash-remittance excise runs through the share of senders using cash rather than bank or card channels, which we could not source at disclosure quality for El Salvador specifically.
Nicaragua
The strongest capacity score in the region and the only member close to protein balance, with a protein self-sufficiency ratio of 70 per cent, animal-protein self-sufficiency of 90 per cent, the lowest cereal import dependency ratio outside Belize at 50.5 per cent, 499,000 tonnes of rice, 1.37 million tonnes of milk and beef exports of about 116,000 tonnes that make it the region's only significant protein exporter. It also has genuine headroom: 0.224 hectares of arable land per person and 23,209 cubic metres of renewable freshwater. Three qualifications: soybean meal is 99.8 per cent United States-sourced, undernourishment at 17.3 per cent in 2021-2023, the last window FAO reports for it, is the highest in Central America, and the cattle expansion runs on the forest frontier. Reporting to FAO stops in 2022-2023 for several series, so recent deterioration would not yet be visible.
Costa Rica
The clearest illustration of the region's structure. Animal-protein self-sufficiency is 80 per cent, with 144,000 tonnes of chicken, 1.38 billion eggs and 1.27 million tonnes of milk, yet total protein self-sufficiency is only 56 per cent and the cereal import dependency ratio is 92.5 per cent. Maize production has fallen to 8,000 tonnes against 1.07 million tonnes imported, and rice output fell from 180,000 to 64,000 tonnes between 2018 and 2024 as tariff liberalisation took effect. Arable land per person is the second lowest on the mainland at 0.032 hectares. Food insecurity of 14.6 per cent is the lowest in the region and undernourishment is below 2.5 per cent. It is water-rich, fiscally capable, a regional hatchery hub, and almost wholly dependent on imported feed grain.
Panama
The most single-sourced member in the region: 99.8 per cent of maize, 100 per cent of soybean meal and 100 per cent of imported chicken meat arrive from the United States. Poultry self-sufficiency of 94 per cent and rice output of 371,000 tonnes give it more domestic protein than most Caribbean members, but the feed chain has no second origin. It has the highest GNI per capita in the region at US$41,770 (2025) and 31,040 cubic metres of renewable freshwater per person. Panama also owns the region's one global chokepoint, whose 2023-24 drought cut daily transits from a pre-drought 34 to 36 down to 24 from 7 November 2023, and whose neo-Panamax maximum draft was cut in three steps in 2026 under an emerging El Nino, from 50.0 feet to 49.5 on 1 July, 49.0 on 24 July and 48.5 on 15 August: the binding constraint on its logistics is now hydrological. Its 219,000 tonnes of reported capture fisheries in 2023 is an open-registry artefact rather than domestic supply.
Belize
On the indicators, the most self-sufficient member: a cereal import dependency ratio of 13.2 per cent, 105,000 tonnes of maize, 0.248 hectares of arable land per person and 37,891 cubic metres of renewable freshwater, the highest in the region. Poultry runs at 96 per cent self-sufficiency and eggs at surplus, and food insecurity has fallen to 15.5 per cent. Its weaknesses are scale, reporting and measurement: with 423,000 people it has no capacity to supply neighbours at volume, animal protein supply is only 39.4 grams per person per day, its 198,000 tonnes of reported capture fisheries in 2023 is flag-state attribution to an open registry rather than domestic catch, food imports still equal 45 per cent of merchandise exports, and it does not report to the FAOSTAT trade matrix, so its supplier concentration is unmeasured.
Cuba
The region's most severe active failure and the largest arable holding, 2.91 million hectares or 26 per cent of the regional total, at 0.264 hectares per person. FAOSTAT records rice falling from 461,000 to 84,000 tonnes, pigmeat from 236,000 to 17,000 tonnes, chicken meat from 24,000 to 4,000 tonnes, milk from 577,000 to 231,000 tonnes and eggs from 2.78 to 1.22 billion between 2018 and 2024. Nitrogen use is down to 5,000 tonnes, fertiliser import value fell from US$75 million in 2018 to about US$43 million, and herbicide imports fell 80 per cent. Imports have replaced production: 239,400 tonnes of American chicken meat in 2024, from the country that embargoes it. USDA put 12.8 to 37.8 per cent of the population below 2,100 calories a day in 2023, food imports equal 115 per cent of merchandise exports, 57 per cent of the agricultural area was uncultivated on the most recent retrievable official position, for 2017, and the ration book meant to be the endurance mechanism is being progressively emptied. Cuba stopped submitting Food Balance Sheets in 2019, so its 95.3 grams of protein per person per day is a pre-collapse figure. Capacity here fails on institutions and foreign exchange rather than on resources.
Dominican Republic
The best-performing large Caribbean member and the only one to have diversified a major feed line: 75 per cent of its 1.53 million tonnes of maize now comes from Brazil against 17 per cent from the United States. Protein self-sufficiency is 68 per cent, chicken meat production has risen to 422,000 tonnes, eggs to 3.96 billion and rice to 958,000 tonnes, close to self-sufficiency, and it exports eggs to Cuba, Aruba, Guyana and the French Antilles. Against that, soybean meal is 99.9 per cent United States-sourced, domestic maize covers under 5 per cent of the 1.7 million tonnes consumed, national maize storage of 130,000 tonnes is about 28 days of use, it is the region's largest US agricultural market at US$2.2 billion (2024), and 45.2 per cent of the population reports moderate or severe food insecurity with 17.9 per cent severe, unusually high for its income.
Haiti
Severely constrained across every pillar. Protein supply of 45.9 grams per person per day and animal protein of 12.3 grams are the lowest in the hemisphere; dietary energy supply adequacy is 84 per cent of requirement and undernourishment 51.4 per cent; 5.83 million people, 52 per cent of the analysed population, sit in IPC Phase 3 or worse in the March to June 2026 projection update, with more than 1.8 million of them in Phase 4; the IPC's most recent completed acute malnutrition analysis, covering December 2023 to November 2024, put nearly 277,000 children aged 6 to 59 months in need, including 125,000 severely malnourished. Moderate or severe food insecurity is 86.7 per cent and severe 48.7 per cent. Rice is effectively a single-supplier import, with 354,500 tonnes of milled rice arriving from the United States in 2024 against domestic output of 135,000 tonnes, and food imports equal 149 per cent of merchandise exports. Fertiliser use is 3,000 tonnes of nitrogen, renewable freshwater 1,131 cubic metres per person, and armed-group control of the Artibonite has removed the state's ability to protect production. Remittances at 16.9 per cent of GDP and 664,000 tonnes of cassava are the only functioning buffers.
Jamaica
A severe test of endurance. Hurricane Melissa caused US$8.8 billion of physical damage in October 2025, 41 per cent of 2024 GDP, with J$29.5 billion of agricultural loss across 41,390 hectares and more than 70,000 farmers, about 1.25 million animals lost including 780,000 broilers and 458,000 layers, and 70 per cent of annual yam production gone; CCRIF paid US$91.9 million within weeks, about 1 per cent of the damage. Structurally it has a cereal import dependency ratio of 99.3 per cent, 0.044 hectares of arable land per person and 2,000 tonnes of maize production against 322,000 tonnes imported at 90 per cent United States share, but chicken meat runs at 84 per cent self-sufficiency on that imported grain in a poultry sector valued at J$310 billion. Rice comes overwhelmingly from Guyana and Suriname, a rare diversification. Moderate or severe food insecurity of 60.8 per cent is the highest outside Haiti.
Trinidad and Tobago
The most instructive contradiction in the region. It produced 647,000 tonnes of nitrogen nutrient and exported 690,000 tonnes in 2024, making it the world's largest ammonia exporter, with roughly 15 to 20 per cent of the ocean-traded ammonia market, and making the region a net nitrogen exporter, while feeding itself on a cereal import dependency ratio of 100 per cent, 0.020 hectares of arable land per person and a protein self-sufficiency ratio of 25 per cent. Poultry self-sufficiency of 68 per cent rests on maize that is 99.6 per cent United States-sourced. Rice is 67 per cent Guyanese. Its GNI per capita of US$36,080 buys food, but its nitrogen surplus is contracted to world markets rather than to CARICOM agriculture and the gas feedstock behind it is declining, with utilisation down from 3.5 to 2.4 billion cubic feet per day since 2015. It is now offering the Galleons Passage for the CARICOM cargo ferry pilot.
The Bahamas
Protein self-sufficiency of 15 per cent and animal-protein self-sufficiency of 14 per cent, the weakest large-island position in the region, with a cereal import dependency ratio of 98.4 per cent, 0.020 hectares of arable land per person and 0.1 per cent of arable land irrigated. It holds the region's highest animal-protein supply at 71.4 grams per person per day, financed by tourism income of US$39,610 GNI per capita (2024), and its imports are 85.5 per cent United States-sourced, the most supplier-concentrated food system in the region. Food imports equal 106 per cent of merchandise exports. Hurricane Dorian in 2019 established that a single storm can remove an entire island's food system, and 21.1 per cent report moderate or severe food insecurity despite the income. The 2026 energy shock raised Bahamian fuel costs sharply, though we could not anchor a retail pump price to a named source and carry no figure.
Barbados
The most water-scarce state in the index at 283 cubic metres of renewable internal freshwater per person per year, below the 500 cubic metre absolute-scarcity threshold, using close to 100 per cent of its available water, with 0.025 hectares of arable land per person and a cereal import dependency ratio of 100 per cent. It compensates with the region's highest irrigation coverage at 12.6 per cent of arable land and 83 per cent poultry self-sufficiency. Its rice is 52 per cent Guyanese and its maize 99.7 per cent American, and food imports equal 86 per cent of merchandise exports. Protein supply of 109.1 grams per person per day sits alongside 35.6 per cent moderate or severe food insecurity and 9.7 per cent severe, one of the sharpest supply-access gaps in the region. Its contribution to regional endurance is institutional: it anchors the Connect Caribe ferry venture and the regional food hub concept, and it pioneered natural-disaster clauses in sovereign debt.
Saint Lucia
Protein self-sufficiency of 16 per cent and animal-protein self-sufficiency of 20 per cent, with a cereal import dependency ratio that reached 100 per cent by 2021-2023 from 92.9 per cent two years earlier, 0.015 hectares of arable land per person, the lowest in the region, and no reporting to the FAOSTAT trade matrix. It buys 7,600 tonnes of American chicken meat, 8,900 tonnes of American maize and 5,200 tonnes of American soybean meal a year, so effectively its entire animal protein chain is one supplier, and food imports equal 194 per cent of merchandise exports. Protein supply is comfortable at 99.4 grams per person per day, but the last food-insecurity measurement is from 2016-2018, leaving it among the least monitored members.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
The highest protein supply in the region at 115.4 grams per person per day on a protein self-sufficiency ratio of 14 per cent and an animal-protein self-sufficiency ratio of 7 per cent, the lowest animal figure in the region and an extreme version of the Caribbean pattern. Wheat is 100 per cent and soybean meal 98 per cent United States-sourced, while rice is 97 per cent Guyanese; cereal import dependency rose from 87.7 to 98.5 per cent across four years and food imports equal 231 per cent of merchandise exports. Renewable freshwater is 980 cubic metres per person. Hurricane Beryl destroyed 98 per cent of banana and plantain production and roughly 75 per cent of bearing fruit in the Grenadines in July 2024, on top of the 2021 La Soufriere eruption, making it the member with the highest recent shock frequency relative to its size and a direct cause of CARICOM's decision to push the 25 by 2025 target to 2030.
Grenada
Beryl's worst-hit state: US$218 million of damage, 16.5 per cent of 2023 GDP, with 97 per cent of buildings on Petit Martinique and 70 per cent on Carriacou damaged or destroyed and an estimated 80 per cent loss of economic tree and staple crops. Protein self-sufficiency is 22 per cent, the cereal import dependency ratio is 100 per cent and wheat is entirely American, while rice is 85 per cent Guyanese and chicken meat 61 per cent American with 26 per cent Brazilian, one of the better-diversified meat profiles among the small islands, and 31.9 per cent of its agri-food imports come from within the region. Food imports equal 305 per cent of merchandise exports. Renewable freshwater is 1,711 cubic metres per person, and food insecurity has improved to 18.9 per cent from 23.7 two years earlier, the best trend in the Eastern Caribbean.
Antigua and Barbuda
The weakest capacity position in the index at a protein self-sufficiency ratio of 6 per cent and animal-protein self-sufficiency of 5 per cent, with a cereal import dependency ratio of 100 per cent, 560 cubic metres of renewable freshwater per person, absolute water scarcity, and 0.9 per cent of arable land irrigated. Food imports equal 661 per cent of merchandise exports, meaning goods exports cover roughly one-seventh of the food bill and tourism does the rest. Protein supply is 97.5 grams per person per day and animal protein 67.2 grams, wholly purchased. Its chicken meat is 55 per cent American and 44 per cent Brazilian, a genuine two-supplier split, and rice is 49 per cent Guyanese. Moderate or severe food insecurity of 14.4 per cent is the lowest measured in the region, evidence that purchased supply can be reliable while it lasts.
Dominica
The least measured member: absent from Food Balance Sheets after 2022 and from the FAOSTAT protein series after 2007-2009, so it is excluded from the regional aggregates, which is itself a finding about the data available to CARICOM policymakers. What exists shows the pattern: a cereal import dependency ratio of 100 per cent, food imports at 264 per cent of merchandise exports, 0.079 hectares of arable land per person, 2,993 cubic metres of renewable freshwater, 83 per cent of chicken meat from the United States and 84 per cent of rice from Guyana, with 37.2 per cent of agri-food imports sourced within the region, the highest intraregional share in the Caribbean. Its 38.3 per cent moderate or severe food insecurity is among the region's highest. Hurricane Maria in 2017 caused damage assessed at more than twice annual GDP, the most extreme single-storm loss recorded in the hemisphere.
Saint Kitts and Nevis
The smallest member at 46,900 people with severely constrained capacity, a protein self-sufficiency ratio of 3 per cent, animal-protein self-sufficiency of effectively zero, 514 cubic metres of renewable freshwater per person, absolute water scarcity, and 0.1 per cent of arable land irrigated. Its entire animal protein supply of 58.7 grams per person per day is imported, food imports equal 206 per cent of merchandise exports (up from 108 per cent two years earlier), and it does not report to the FAOSTAT trade matrix, so its supplier mix is known only from United States mirror data showing 1,500 tonnes of chicken meat and 1,200 tonnes of maize. Its GNI per capita of US$36,430 makes it wealthy and its last food-insecurity reading, 26.4 per cent moderate or severe in 2019-2021, makes it fragile.

Sources

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What we could not measure

Cuba has not reported food-balance data to the UN since 2019, so its protein self-sufficiency figure predates the country's later production collapse and is likely overstated. Eight of the region's twenty countries, Cuba among them, have no diet-affordability data at all; the region's 43 per cent unaffordability figure is weighted across the twelve that do report, with Cuba carried only as an unscored downside risk. Stunting readings range from a 2012 survey in Nicaragua to 2019 in Cuba, some over a decade old.

Published August 2026 ·How scores are produced