Strengthen TT’s agricultural policy

THE EDITOR: I would like through the medium of your paper, to express the following. Agriculture is defined as the science and art of farming, work of cultivating the soil, producing crops, and raising livestock. When man was created, the first duty allotted him by the Creator was to take care of the environment which had to do with plant and animal life. Although Adam transgressed, yet he lived up to the age of 930 years. Men of the early ages were agriculturalists and lived very long. But when men began building cities and industries, the life span became shorter and shorter. The most powerful nations in the world are nations having a sound agricultural base. And because of this their economies are always on the rise.

Take the great nation of India that became an independent state from British rule in 1950 with a present population of over one billion people, that nation can be classified today as being self-sufficient in food production because of a sound agricultural policy. The government of India placed agriculture at the top level with other industries making that country a force to be reckoned with economically. Take as examples modern nations like the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, which are classified as industrialised countries, have a sound agricultural base with the capacity to feed their people and feed the world. Trinidad and Tobago which aims to be an industrialised nation by the year 2020 has a weak agricultural policy. And if this is not rectified this 2020 vision would be a fallacy.

Previous PNM governments have been very weak in formulating any agricultural programme that could make this country self-sufficient. And if the present PNM administration does not change this by giving agriculture top priority commensurate with other industrial planning, then our economic base that is dependent only on oil and gas would not be a sound one. Higher and higher wages demanded by oil and gas workers create an imbalance in the economy. Thus the gravitational pull of workers from the non-oil sectors to the oil sector is creating difficulty in the economy. Small business enterprises are suffering. It must be recognised that small business enterprises are the largest employers of workers in the country; and small business enterprises have to be expanded commensurate with population growth. It is estimated that about 30 percent of the population live below the poverty line. This is a situation in which the poor people get poorer and the rich get richer. To check this trend in the economy, the rising cost of living has to be stabilised together with job creation in other sectors of the economy. And the best way to accomplish this, would be a sound agricultural policy and programme to supply the basic needs of our people.

DA COSTA MC DONALD
Pt Fortin