With this country facing a $4 billion annual food import bill, the T&T Agribusiness Association (TTABA) has a clear mandate: to get Trinidadians to eat local. Vassel Stewart, chief executive officer of TTABA, said it's ambitiously seeking to displace imported food with local processed food. He said the three main commodities that TTABA is seeking to displace are wheat, rice and Irish potato with locally-produced cassava, sweet potato and plantain. Stewart said these three imported commodities-wheat, rice and potato-were chosen because they have contributed greatly to the high food import bill, but he couldn't supply figures.
Something must be done now to improve T&T's food security, said Stewart, in an interview last week Friday at TTABA's office, Eastern Main Road, Tunapuna. "If we are going to increase food security, we have to be able to displace imported food with local processed products." Reducing food inflation is key to TTABA's role. According to the Central Bank's Financial Stability Report, Mid-Year Review, June 2010, headline inflation had reached double-digits during 2010 on the back of an escalation of domestic food prices. "While domestic agricultural production has been recovering, the surges in international prices of wheat, dairy, oil and sugar, do not appear to have yet been reflected in local prices, but are expected to be passed onto consumers in the coming months," the report stated.
Stewart said achieving food security was an important initiative and the organisation required a collaborative effort from all the various ministries. Food Production Minister Vasant Bharath is already on board. Stewart said TTABA has entered into a public/private sector partnership agreement with Government to prepare and implement a National Agri-business Development Programme (NADP) that is State funded to the tune of $172 million over five years. The purpose of NADP is to transform, diversify and expand T&T's agri-business sector, which initially targets about ten commodities and develop a range of value added products that would displace several imports. "We have already developed about 14 processed products from the three commodities: cassava, sweet potato and plantain, which are all in the supermarkets, like Hi-Lo FoodStores and TruValu Supermarket, and at the retail level in the food service sector, restaurants, school feeding programme, hospitals, and so on.
Cassava fries at KFC?
Even though the Central Bank announced last month that headline inflation is on the decline, that does not necessary translate into lower food prices. The inflation rate dropped from 17 per cent from last year to 3.9 per cent as of June 24, 2011. Cassava and sweet potato fries are the first set of products to be marketed, Stewart said. Most of the development work-agreements in place for marketing and fast food outlets to sell them at-is completed and the major players have already agreed. "But there are additional infrastructure works that must be done in order to meet the outlets' food specifications," he said.Among the specifications are that TTABA would be required to engage in oil blanching-cooking briefly in oil-rather than water blanching of some of its products.
Oil blanching would result in the kind of crispiness the outlets required, Stewart said. For the health-conscious consumer, TTABA would be water blanching its other products. He said that even though specific products-like the sweet potato and cassava fries-would be oil blanched, those commodities absorb less oil than Irish potato, so it's a healthier option. Apart from fast food outlets, TTABA would also be focusing on bakeries to encourage them to replace wheat with cassava in breads and other baked products.
"We have a number of small- to medium-sized bakeries on board," Stewart said.
In six months, TTABA expects to roll out its range of baked products, primarily breads in various healthy forms: some with pure cassava, others with cassava and flour and other grains. By year's end, the agro-processing company plans to launch its new pommecythere drink and a wide range of products based on local raw materials that would be new to the local market. TTABA is also a major supplier of bottled coconut water. Making value-added products from local produce, Stewart said, would help increase farmers' market share. Other produce TTABA has on the market are local sweet corn, which Stewart said is "less expensive than the imported product"-spinach, patchoi, dasheen bush-all of which are chopped fresh and frozen.
Changing mindsets
"While we are trying to increase our domestic market share by pushing cassava and sweet potato fries in the fast food outlets, the duty on imported potato fries has been reduced. "This is counter-productive and these are some of the challenges we are trying to work through with the Trade and Food Production Ministries." Stewart said TTABA has plans on working more intimately with the bigger distributors and those who have the capacity to ensure not only the products are available, but to have the kind of promotional budget behind it.
Stewart said the most important aspect is changing the mind-set of the people.
He said TTABA is calling on the Government to establish a strong national programme that would market and encourage citizens to eat local, not just from the perspective of trying to support the economy, but promote healthy eating. A second challenge is for the Government to give farmers more support. Stewart said in order to keep the cost of production down, farmers need more public sector support in terms of subsidies, and, in some cases, assistance with research and development in order to find safe measures in producing higher yield. "We may not reach to the point where we are low cost producers relative to the countries we import, but there is a lot we can do to bring the cost of production down," Stewart said. "TTABA is trying to put in place support mechanisms for the farmers that would allow the cost of production to be reduced and to ensure at the processing level we have the right kind of efficiencies."
With TTABA having provided farmers with equipment and machinery, they can now plant, produce, harvest, and peel cassava mechanically. Farouk Shah, production and procurement manager at TTABA, said using machinery cuts the cost of labour by 50 per cent. Shah said TTABA is also assisting farmers at the primary level with market and development research. "But it is going to take a coordinated national thrust with the strong public/private sector collaboration and policy measures if we are going to make an impact on this drive to increase food security and better health by eating local foods."
Stable market for farmers
Gerard Hernandez, one of the pommecythere farmers contracted by TTABA, said he appreciated the organisation's initiative as it provides a stable market for farmers like himself. He said TTABA ensures that farmers maintain and meet high quality international standards. Hernandez, who has two-acres of pommecythere trees (1,200) in Caura, said he has been supplying 2,500 pounds per month to TTABA.
While Hernandez grows other fruits, such as cashew, plums, a variety of mangoes and portugal for retail purposes, his pommecythere business is the most lucrative. Hernandez said in order to assist farmers in a more meaningful way, the Government should make loans more accessible to farmers, provide more incentives and improve infrastructure by creating more access roads to farm lands. Those measures will go a long way to improve production.
Hansraj Ramlal, secretary of the Plum Mitan /Biche Farmers Group and a contracted TTABA farmer, said that apart from the outstanding issue of land tenure, farmers' main problem is marketing. Ramlal has started growing an acre of sweet corn, but said land tenure is a hindrance to planting more land. Ramlal said TTABA's programme provides farmers with a stable market and stable prices year round. Previously, farmers had to go through a middleman, with whom they would have to negotiate prices and often times earn less profits. Ramlal said TTABA has contributed $40,000 to Plum Mitan/Biche Farmers group to purchase a six-inch water pump to assist in the dry and rainy seasons, recounting the severe drought T&T experienced in 2010. Alister Glean, manager, institutional support, said TTABA has a fairly large volume of product in storage with 1/2 million pounds of cassava, four million pounds in the ground, more than 150 acres of pommecythere. "Therefore, we can begin promotion because we have the supplies to justify the promotional dollar."