Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Tobago all experienced the end of the EU's Sugar Protocol, which guaranteed prices for sugar exports. While they shared histories and similarities in size, they developed different agricultural policies in response. This study examines: a) how each state responded and why; b) how farmers in each country responded to new policies; and c) the implications for social sustainability of agriculture. The concept of sustainable agriculture is applied to understand how the countries evolved after subsidy-supported sugar ended, and what alternative pathways they developed to fulfill sustainable development agendas. The state responses and how policies influenced agricultural actors are emphasized.

1. ABSTRACT
How have different, yet similar small states and farmers and responded to the
politics of post-preference agriculture?
The end of the European Union’s (EU) Sugar Protocol (SP) has had implications for the
subsequent agricultural development of certain African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.
The Sugar Protocol was an agreement by the European Union to ACP countries to purchase
specific quantities of sugar at guaranteed price above world prices. With the end of the Sugar
Protocol, countries were faced with the challenge of reshaping policies to counter the effects of
an ending sugar agreement by seeking to open new avenues for promoting national development.
Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Tobago have been selected for this study because they all
experienced this uniform global imperative, they share similar histories, and they are quite
similar in size and social composition, yet they have all made very different policy choices.
Consequently, their subsequent trajectories, in terms of agricultural policies and its effects on
both farmers, the responses of farmers themselves to these changes and the social sustainability
of development and agriculture that is thereby generated, provides the main focus of the
research. In short, the EU unilaterally denounced the sugar Protocol and twenty (20) sugar
producing countries of the ACP had to adapt to the changes with different implications for their
farmers. Consequently, their farmers in turn, had to respond to that reality. This thesis therefore;
seeks to investigate:
a) How each state responded and why;
b) How their farmers, in turn, responded to that new policy environment; and
c) What the implications are for the subsequent social sustainability of agriculture.
In order to achieve these aims the concept of sustainable agriculture is applied to the three
case studies namely in order to understand how these countries have evolved from the period of
subsidy-supported sugar to a period where they have had to develop alternative pathways for
fulfilling their sustainable development agendas. Emphasis is placed on the state and what types
of policies they have used to cope with the changes in the Sugar Regime and also, how these
policies have managed to influence the behaviors of the different actors in the agricultural sector.