It is irresponsible to abandon Caroni lands

In August of 2003, the PNM government with John Rahael as Agricultural Minister stopped the cultivation of sugar cane on over 27,000 acres of land.

This also affected another 11,000 acres that was tenanted to cane farmers.

Caroni at that time was responsible for over 77,000 acres of land. That is more land than the entire area of Tobago. What followed the closure of Caroni Ltd to this day can be viewed by many as a level of irresponsibility and ineptitude that borders on the imbecilic.

Shortly after the decision to stop the cultivation and processing of sugar cane, the lands were abandoned. Sugar cane fields to this day are uncultivated with nothing but wild grass.

Governments of both political parties have been in office and neither saw it fit to plant corn, peppers, ground provision or even place animals on the grass for pasture. They simply left the land at the mercy of squatters.

There are no reports on what is the status of the 4,000 acres of teak and citrus. Nothing about the over 3,000 acres of pasture and the animals that once occupied those lands. The factories and houses were looted.

The train lines were uprooted and the tracks occupied by squatters.

Today one drives though the open fields along the Solomon Hochoy Highway or through the main road between San Fernando and Princes Town or in the Barrackpore area and see acres of lands abandoned except for the squatters who daily increase their acreage of State land.

The state of Caroni lands is one that demonstrates clearly our inability to govern ourselves. It is almost insane for a nation to simply not plant anything on acres of agricultural lands. The two major political parties both had opportunities to at the very least invite private farmers to utilise the lands and did very little.

As our nation struggles to find foreign exchange to pay for food to feed our people, we daily drive past the abandoned Caroni lands without a vision for feeding ourselves.

One can’t help but quote Bob Marley: “In the abundance of water, the fool is thirsty.”

STEVE ALVAREZ via email