Rambharat: Reshuffles hurt agriculture

He said that Kamaluddin Mohammed was the last Agriculture Minister to serve a full term, from 1981 to 1986, adding that this frequent shuffling of ministers has put farmers at a tremendous disadvantage.

With expectations high of a Cabinet reshuffle after the presentation of the 2016-2017 Budget, Rambharat hastened to add that he was not campaigning to keep the agriculture portfolio, pointing out that he was a senator “and I serve at the behest of the Prime Minister.” Nevertheless, he said that “continuity is critical to building the foundation and sustaining the work we have to do in agriculture.” Rambharat made the comments as he delivered the feature address during a “Hot Pepper Field Tour” organised by the Agricultural Society at the farm of Nawaz Karim in Maloney. He said the ministry required consistency and focus and that these transfers of ministers was responsible for many of the challenges faced by farmers over the last 30 years.

The field tour was intended to encourage farmers growing hot peppers to adopt technology developed by the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute which has been proven to increase yield. The technology involves the use of limestone and manure as well as other organic materials.

Meanwhile, with the next budget due to be presented within a few weeks, Rambharat said he had asked the University of the West Indies to review the range of agricultural incentives offered by Government to farmers to find out whether they are effective.

Rambharat said in requesting the review he wanted to know which of the incentives had been used, which are not heavily used and if the grant of the incentives had really led to an increase in food production. He said he also hoped to learn from the review whether the sector needed new incentives which it did not have at present.

Rambharat said, “We’ve spent close to a half a billion dollars in just over five years on agricultural incentives and subsidies. That’s a significant amount.

During that time agriculture’s contribution to gross domestic product has actually declined and in some scale after that stalled at four percent. I want to make sure that we are getting value for money, I want to make sure that the money is spent in the right places to help the farmers.” President of the Agricultural Society, Dhano Sookhoo, reminded the farmers that since last year the society had begun a series of training programmes in hot pepper production with the final one scheduled for next Tuesday at the Williamsville Community Centre.

Sookhoo said that when the programme is completed it would have trained 265 people in hot pepper production under the Agricultural Policy Programme which is funded by the European Union.

She said yesterday’s event was attended by five of the country’s top producers of hot peppers and singled out Nazimool Karim, the father of Nawaz Karim, on whose farm the meeting was held, as the hot pepper king despite the achievements of his son, who is also into the production of hot peppers.

Sookhoo and other speakers said there is a huge and growing market for hot peppers in Florida and it was important that farmers learn the proper way of packing their peppers for export to minimise damage in transit and extend the shelf life of the peppers