Policy and politics, two different animals

Speaking with Newsday during a symposium last week, in Valencia, where the Agricultural Society of Trinidad and Tobago (ASTT) discussed the importance of expanding the production of hot peppers, Francis said policy and politics were two different animals, and politics tended to change very often while the policy was supposed to be very stable.

She said when one did not get that convergence of policy and politics, the institutional behaviour changes and capacity changes tended to fall apart.

IICA partnered with the European Union (EU) to execute the Agricultural Policy Programme for hot pepper farming.

“There were three components to deal with the hot pepper programme was led by CARDI (Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute) research and development and AgriBusiness Development Corporation.

We worked at improving practices in the field to get higher yields and higher productivity of the hot pepper,” she said.

At the symposium, it was noted that hot peppers were in great demand in North America and Europe.

Francis said farmers would have had practices that they developed through generations, but Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) developed other areas that would produce a higher and better quality product.