Waiting on a new moon

Just imagine a tasty, nutritious soup had to be taken off the school feeding programme diet because our farmers could not supply one and a quarter million pounds of ground provisions every month. Why? Our farmers cannot produce enough “blue food.” That is the sad state of agriculture in this country. Then when the Barbados impasse hit, exporters started crying hard times because that country’s refusal to buy our produce would impact seriously on the sector. Nothing was further from the truth because the amount of produce imported by Barbados in any given month is sold in a single day at the Macoya wholesale market in Tunapuna — some 200,000 pounds. Analysis of these two facts will force the national community to take not one, but several looks at what’s really going on in the agricultural sector.

What is necessary is a totally different approach to agriculture, which has to involve Government, the farmers and the national community, including restaurateurs and hoteliers. Most recent statistics reveal that Trinidad and Tobago spent (TT)$2 billion importing food and food inputs, while local food production totalled a mere (TT)$700 million, some three times what we are producing. So while Government has to pay more attention to this sector of the economy to make it more productive and cost effective, the hoteliers and restaurateurs on the other hand must begin pushing the use of local produce in the preparation of the meals at their institutions.

Farmers too, must understand that if their produce is to make it to the top of the food chain, then quality must be a primary consideration. This brings into play proper agricultural practices, including careful use of pesticides and weedicides, timely irrigation and proper post-harvesting handling methods employed. And this is where the planned Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) policy comes into play. Samaroo Dowlath, Chief Executive Officer of the National Agricultural Marketing and Development Corporation (Namdevco) explained that the ultimate result is to have a much more productive agricultural sector providing higher quality produce both for domestic use and the export market.

Dowlath said there were some 15 production protocols being developed and he dealt with six of these:
* sanitation of the soil;
* quality of irrigation water, no contaminants (faeces and chemicals)
* proper use of agricultural chemicals. (There are 14 chemicals on the banned list with advised alternatives)
* hygiene of farm workers ie proper toilet facilities, soap and water, smoke houses etc;
* harvesting techniques and
* post-harvesting handling (transport, crates, proper storage to avoid contamination and keeping records).
The Namdevco  boss said they estimated that some 15 percent of crops were lost due to bad handling (transport and storage) and emphasised the necessity to keep conditions right to allow for proper quality. Dowlath said that some 400 farmers were already in the GAP programme and they have already been taught some valuable lessons regarding some of the listed protocols. He also explained that a system of grading produce would soon be introduced whereby the top quality would be graded ‘A’, second best ‘B’ and so on. This would allow the consumer a choice.

Going back to the School Feeding Programme, Dowlath said his organisation was working closely with the School Nutrition company to increase the local input into the daily menus. He said right now the imports account for 60 percent of the daily diet, but he sees this trend being reversed if local farmers increase their production of root crops and legumes. But greater production leads to another situation, pointed out Dowlath. It means that “farms can provide more jobs, if they undertake to put more acreage under cultivation,” he said. “Health through healthy eating” is a slogan which Dowlath is pushing. He believes that our local foods are of such high nutritional value that consumption of more high quality local foods can increase the health of the nation. In an effort to push the GAP programme forward, Dowlath is encouraging more farms to join. He said that soon the produce from the GAP farms would be the produce seen on the supermarket shelves because those farms are the ones which adhere to the necessary practices to ensure quality food for all.

Even for the export market, produce from the GAP-run farms will more quickly make it abroad than produce from farms which still lag behind in production methods. Dowlath disclosed that there is a supermarket chain in Florida which is prepared to buy one 40-foot container of our produce every month, but only if the required standards of quality are maintained. So there are opportunities locally as well as on the export market for our food. It’s just a matter of making an effort to embrace it.