$50 million to ease agri woes

The agriculture sector should get a boost of TT $50 million over the next three years, if Agriculture Minister Jarette Narine has his way The project is being conducted as part of the ministry’s strategic plan for the period 2005 - 2010 He also talked about a corporate strategic plan and a board of directors to provide the necessary framework to effectively address the constraints faced by the agricultural marketing company, Namdevco. Addressing stakeholders at the Centre of Excellence recently,  Narine explained that he has made recommendations to Cabinet and expects that proposals for the board’s appointment would be approved shortly. The session was titled, “Taking Trinidad and Tobago’s Food to the world.”

He went on to note that he is mindful that the Corporation Strategic Plan is being developed against a backdrop of a liberalised international trading environment, which dictates that TT pay particular attention to the issues of competitiveness and food security. He said that given this new demand, NAMDEV-CO’s role has become more critical, particularly with respect to facilitating increased domestic food production and marketing safe foods for consumers. He went on to note  that “there are few developed countries in the world that do not feed themselves. In that context, we must aim to produce most of the food we consume.”

Narine said that in order to achieve this, it was necessary for  all other stakeholders to work together to create an agricultural sector that utilised appropriate technology, is viable and internationally competitive and is able to generate sustainable incomes for producers. Narine cited a  lack of basic infrastructure — access roads, drainage and irrigation, inefficient water management and the land tenure systems — as being responsible for the demise of agriculture. These, inadequacies, he said served to stymie the development of the domestic agricultural sector.

Government, he said, is proposing to spend approximately TT$10 million in various agriculture communities to ensure that water is available to farms especially in the dry season, and is currently offering incentives to farmers for the installation of small irrigation systems on their farms, with water being supplied from communal ponds. Future plans for the sector includes re-organisation of the research ad extension functions to provide more support for farmers, technology adoption and transfer, pest and disease control, new and improved varieties, and an improvement in yields. “We must not fail,” he said.