Agriculture the way forward

Speaking to reporters before the launch of the constituency’s Food For All God’s Own at Helping Hands Recreation Ground, St Augustine, Ramadhar noted the debate about promoting agriculture as a major income earner has been a decades-old one that must again be revisited with some urgency.

“This was a debate in the country about transforming the economy to having different streams of income and there has been some stop and start efforts in the past,” he said.

“But now and in the recent past where we saw the reduction in our income from oil and gas, the reality must strike and it is said that nothing happens without a necessity and I think we are reaching the point where we can no longer take for granted oil and gas bailing us out. “That is why I made the point that it is about leadership and I don’t mean political leadership alone but in every community to take responsibility for our own and, hopefully, by this effort and the efforts of many others that we change our attitude to agriculture.” Saying that methods of agricultural production have evolved, Ramadhar called for a change in attitude toward the field.

“Agriculture is not the old way of an old fella in the mud in the weather. It takes some of that but agriculture has in other countries been a form of meaningful wealth creation,” he said.

“There are very wealthy farmers even in this country quietly.

And there are many billionaires in foreign countries who went into agriculture. We need to change the work ethic so that we will not believe that it is demeaning to get your hands dirty.” Saying he was shocked by the exorbitant prices for avocados and mangoes, Ramadhar urged communities to grow their own food.

“We have donated plants here today because the ministry (agriculture) had bought a million-plus plants and I encourage all communities to access the Ministry of Agriculture at a subsidised prices so that we will not have to endure avocados at $50 for one or a bag of mangoes at $50 because God gave us everything that we need and the future of this country really resides in the earth itself.” Asked about the impact of rising food prices amidst a foreign exchange shortage, the former legal affairs minister said: “I think it is a reality that we must accept but in accepting the reality of imported food prices always going up - because we have seen the effective devaluation of our dollar - I always believe that a country is never really independent unless it could feed itself.” “This is really about ensuring that we become a little bit more self-sufficient and not relying on imported foods as we have in the past. We cannot afford it. And even if we could, it is a good thing that we become self-sufficient in food.” Ramadhar called for strong leadership in developing agriculture into a profitable commodity.

Regarding the Food For All God’s Own initiative, Ramadhar lamented that many people were “actually going hungry or afraid of going hungry.” “Therefore, we took an initiative with the help of the community in St Augustine to plant fruit trees in public spaces,” he said, expressing hope that the programme will be replicated in other communities.