Food Production Minister Devant Maharaj yesterday presided over the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the new Board of the Agriculture Society of T&T (ASTT) to formalise a regulatory framework for use of government subventions and complementary work programmes between the two organisations.
Maharaj used the opportunity to update the ASTT on his Ministry's aggressive agro-processing agenda.The Ministry turned the sod yesterday for construction of a packing house and state-of-the-art, multi-purpose agro-processing facility yesterday at the old Brechin Castle sugar mill in Couva.
The minister outlined the tremendous economic benefit of this project to farmers and the country in general and invited the ASTT board to join the Ministry in transforming agriculture sector into a robust, demand driven, viable contributor to T&T's GDP. The MOU was signed by Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Food Production, Myrna Thompson and the president of ASTT, Dana Sookoo.