Rahael: Agriculture brings $900M to Govt

AGRICULTURE MINISTER John Rahael yesterday revealed that agriculture brought $900 million to the national coffers and Govern-ment has been able to halt the steady decline in the agricultural sector which was taking place under its UNC predecessor.

Addressing a ceremony at the Central Statistical Office (CSO), Minister Rahael noted that the last agricultural census in Trinidad and Tobago took place in 1982 and the census is supposed to be taken at ten-year intervals. “Since that time many changes have occurred in the domestic agricultural sector,” he said. Rahael said the most significant of these changes was “a very steep decline in  the contribution of agriculture to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)” from 1996 to 2001. He revealed that agriculture’s GDP contributions fell from 2.2 percent in 1996 to “an all-time low” of 1.4 percent in 2001. However the Minister then revealed that in 2002 “we have been able to arrest that decline.” “We have been able to turn the corner because we have now seen an indication of an upward swing. The contribution to GDP increased to 1.5 percent. Not very significant but very important that we were able to arrest that decline and turn it around.

In 2002, for the very first time, we were able in terms of dollars and cents to contribute $900 million to the coffers and the GDP,” Rahael declared. The Minister said ensuring food security for the population was a top priority for the Government and new data-processing equipment handed over to the CSO by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) for the 2004 Agriculture Census will go a long way in achieving this objective. “This system will help in monitoring and evaluating all development plans and projects relating to food, agriculture, agriculture reform and rural development. It would also assist our policy makers in the formulation of appropriate public policy concerning the sector.” The Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Marine Resources is very committed to the establishment of an accurate and reliable agricultural database,” he stated.

Rahael expressed surprise that no mention was made in the census proposal about the country’s fishing resources but said that “now having access to this advanced technology for the 2004 Census, we may now be able to address some of these questions.” The Minister observed that given the inseparability of agriculture and the environment, “Agricultural Census 2004 must therefore identify and evaluate the various farming systems with respect to their environmental sustainability.”