Horticultural Society laments smaller crowd at flower show

The theme of this year’s exhibit, ‘Gems of our Twin Island’ featured local flora cleverly arranged to create familiar scenes in and around Trinidad and Tobago, including Maracas Bay and Bucoo Reef. The event brought together florists, agronomists and craftsmen to the Country Club in Maraval to showcase the skills and products of the Society’s members.

While ornamental plants assumed centre stage for the exhibit, local entrepreneurs were also on hand to showcase their products which ranged from personal-care items to produce and gourmet chocolates.

Garden enthusiast, Henrietta DeVertuil said that the exhibit provided a valuable forum for budding horticulturalists and entrepreneurs seeking to build a customer base. “People tend to think of these events as stuffy fower shows where all we do is drone on about plants, but the truth is that horticulture and agriculture has become a very lucrative business and ornamental plants are only the beginning as there are a number of diffferent cosmetics and food stuff available as people tend to go towards healthy but cost-effective meals.” President of the Horticultural Society, Joan Hampton, said that while she was generally satisfied with the response of patrons to this year’s show she expected a much larger gathering.

“The show has been gradually picking up momentum over the past few years but it hasn’t drawn as large a crowd as I have expected and a lot of that has to do with people’s interest on foreign ornamental flowers. For weddings and other special occasions, persons tend to focus less on the locally available plants and more on those imported.” Hampton added that this speaks to a wider issue that many local Horticulture enthusiasts and many farmers continue to face.

Newsday spoke to Nawaz Karim an official with the Agricultural Scoiety of Trinidad and Tobago who echoed Hampton’s sentiments adding that while the room for growth in local Agriculture, there is no incentive for persons to become involved.

“There’s a lot of opportunity in agriculture to grow and flourish in Trinidad but the willingness on the part of the private sector and the government to invesrt simply isn’t there. We’re really grateful because events like these really give us the opportunuty to market ourselves not only as farmers but as entrepreneurs.”