JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Cheaper fertiliser on market by June

by

20140420

Farm­ers would soon be able to ac­cess cheap­er fer­tilis­er sourced and mar­ket­ed by the State, said Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj.He was at the time speak­ing when the min­istry start­ed its pro­gramme to dis­trib­ute $19.2 mil­lion to farm­ers as part of its in­cen­tive and flood re­lief pro­gramme. The event was held on April 16 at the Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Mar­ket­ing and De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Namde­v­co) whole­sale mar­ket at Debe.

He said Namde­v­co has been man­dat­ed to source the cheap­est pos­si­ble fer­tilis­er and sell to cost to farm­ers. He said the fer­tilis­er, to be sought from the Far East, should be in the mar­ket by June.Ma­haraj said a sim­i­lar mod­el was used by the Seafood In­dus­try De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (SIDC) that sells feed to fish farm­ers at cost price. He said this move by SIDC led to a resur­gence of the tilapia in­dus­try.

Ma­haraj said Gov­ern­ment is look­ing at in­cen­tives for large farm­ers who would soon be able to get in­cen­tives to pur­chase more than one trac­tor.Ma­haraj said the min­istry pre­pared 986 in­cen­tive cheques and 23 flood claim cheques that were dis­trib­uted to farm­ers from the ar­eas of Vic­to­ria, Ma­yaro, Nar­i­va and St Patrick.Ma­haraj said cheques have al­so been pre­pared for coun­ties in both the Re­gion­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion North and the Fish­eries Di­vi­sion.

Ma­haraj said: "As we ex­am­ined the crip­pled agri­cul­ture sec­tor left be­hind from decades of ne­glect by the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion, we recog­nised that the Agri­cul­ture In­cen­tive Pro­gramme and the flood re­lief pack­ages avail­able to farm­ers were stuck in a by­gone era. The in­cen­tives and re­lief of­fered failed to ad­dress the dy­nam­ic agri­cul­ture en­vi­ron­ment. The in­cen­tive pro­gramme and re­lief pack­age that ex­ist­ed for decades un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion were like a damp match in a dark cave.

"In 2011, af­ter a se­ries of con­sul­ta­tions a con­tem­po­rary Agri­cul­tur­al In­cen­tive Pro­gramme was launched, the buck did not stop there. The Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion al­so ap­point­ed a Mul­ti-Sec­toral Stand­ing Com­mit­tee for the In­cen­tive Pro­gramme to en­sure con­tin­u­ous im­prove­ment of the ser­vices of­fered.

Ma­haraj said: "The main goal of this re­vised Agri­cul­tur­al In­cen­tive Pro­gramme is to stim­u­late the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, com­pet­i­tive­ness and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the agri­cul­ture and fish­eries sec­tor. We have seen the num­ber of ap­pli­cants to the Agri­cul­tur­al In­cen­tive Pro­gramme ex­pand ex­po­nen­tial­ly since its re­vi­sion, and this sure­ly in­di­cates the new and re­newed in­ter­est in the agri­cul­ture sec­tor."

Ma­haraj said the Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion will con­tin­ue to en­gage in a sig­nif­i­cant amount of work and ex­pend re­sources to en­sure that there is a sup­port­ive and en­abling agri­cul­tur­al en­vi­ron­ment to fa­cil­i­tate agri­cul­tur­al ven­tures.Ma­haraj said in­cen­tives are in place to:

�2 En­cour­age youths in agri­cul­ture in light of an age­ing farm­ing pop­u­la­tion

�2 En­cour­age an in­creased lev­el of mech­a­ni­sa­tion to en­able agri­cul­ture to be tech­nol­o­gy dri­ven

�2 Fa­cil­i­tate year-round agri­cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties, such as the pro­mo­tion of on-farm ir­ri­ga­tion sys­tems

�2 Es­tab­lish pro­tect­ed agri­cul­tur­al sys­tems such as green hous­es and shade hous­es

�2 Im­prove hus­bandry prac­tices and pas­ture man­age­ment for in­creased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the live­stock sub-sec­tor

�2 Sup­port the sus­tain­able man­age­ment of fish­ing op­er­a­tions

�2 En­cour­age new in­vest­ment in the sec­tor via the de­vel­op­ment and ex­pan­sion of agribusi­ness ven­tures; and

�2 Sup­port the es­tab­lish­ment of post har­vest fa­cil­i­ties.

Re­gard­ing flood re­lief, Ma­haraj said un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion, cob­web set­tled on the re­lief pack­age, which was last up­dat­ed in 1986.He said: "Imag­ine you were be­ing com­pen­sat­ed for pro­duce in 2010 based on 1986 prices. This ad­min­is­tra­tion de­vised a con­tem­po­rary re­lief pack­age for the mod­ern day farmer. For the first time, we have ex­pand­ed as­sis­tance to in­clude both crop and live­stock farm­ers and fish­er­folk."

Ma­haraj said pro­vi­sion­al da­ta ob­tained from the Cen­tral Bank on the quar­ter­ly gross do­mes­tic prod­uct showed that the agri­cul­ture sec­tor, for the first time in 40 years, ex­pe­ri­enced five con­sec­u­tive quar­ters of growth from the first quar­ter of 2012 to the first quar­ter of 2013.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored