Minister urges: Buy local food produce

AT the moment the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands and Marine Resources is aiming “at providing food for  the nation if we are to achieve developed country status by 2020. “Our Ministry is the most important arm of Government as we are supposed to have food security for the nation by ensuring sufficient food production and if we do not reach our target the country suffers, economically and otherwise,” Jarrette Narine, the Minister of Agriculture said. At the time Narine was addressing a full house of employees of his Ministry at Centre Pointe Mall Auditorium, Ramsaran Street, Chaguanas, on Friday morning  and he noted that “this is the first time that we have gathered like this to make our voices heard in a food policy forum that aims at providing food for all.”

He told the gathering “the cost of  importing foodstuff was very high and when you see what is being sold in the grocery coming from abroad I am making the appeal to start buying local products produced by the farmers and the people of Trinidad and Tobago.” He said, “Your economic well being and that of your family depends largely on what we are doing at the Ministry with respect to the development of agriculture.” He felt that the “demise of agriculture over the years is our fault but I am happy to see so many of you here today to put your ideas together so that we could come up with a first class agricultural policy from which the nation would benefit.”

The Minister noted that it was important to save the Grade One, Grade Two and Grade Three lands for agriculture, and pointed out that in Central Trinidad “we have lost the best lands and what we are left with now for agriculture is Grade four, five, six and seven lands,” as was stated by the Jerry Hospedales Committee on Agri-culture. He said countries that have met Developed Status over the years, did so because “they could all feed themselves  and so far we are not able to do that because we were not able to get all the stakeholders together so that we could tell them to get agriculture on the front burner, because we are as important to the nation as health, education and everything else.”

He said the nation is now getting health conscious and we are running around every road in the country but still eating sub standard food that is not healthy. He encouraged the gathering to “start eating healthy foods from a young age and not  begin when you are old and if you pursue such a lifestyle you will be helping to promote agriculture in Trinidad and Tobago.” “This  exercise  is to improve agriculture over the next ten to 15 years and the young people in particular must face this responsibility and carry the mantle forward so that we could achieve developed status by 2020,” he said.

“Let us spread the gospel of agriculture around so we could feed ourselves comfortably and reduce the food import bill,” he said. The Strategic Agricultural Policy now being pursued is being co-ordinated by  UWI and the Faculty of Agriculture at the head of which are Professor Manfred Jantsen, Senior Adviser, and Dr Ranjit Singh  whose expertise in the field is widely appreciated.