Win with Lo­cal Fruits is the theme for the Na­tion­al Fruit Fes­ti­val 2014, or­gan­ised by the Table­land Pineap­ple Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TP­FA) which takes place from to­day to Sun­day at the Nu Im­age Sim­plex Com­plex, New Grant, Princes Town.The fes­ti­val is one of the ini­tia­tives be­ing pro­mot­ed by the TP­FA iden­ti­fy and cre­ate a food sys­tem that is safe and al­lows farm­ers to meet the de­mand for lo­cal foods with­out ex­ces­sive Gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tion and ex­pen­di­ture.

The group is re­spon­si­ble for more than 80 per cent of pineap­ple pro­duc­tion in T&T and al­so pro­duces pa­paya, cas­sa­va, man­go, pom­me­cythere, plan­tain, hot pep­per and oth­er fruits. The TP­FA has been an ad­vo­cate for the de­vel­op­ment of the pineap­ple in­dus­try and for in­creased con­sump­tion of fruits al­to­geth­er.The group said in a re­lease: "Cur­rent­ly pro­duc­tion, sales, and con­sump­tion of lo­cal­ly grown fruits are rel­a­tive­ly low. In re­sponse, an in­crease in pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness ef­forts tar­get­ing con­sumers is nec­es­sary in or­der to bol­ster the fruit in­dus­try."

The TP­FA said it is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing lo­cal food pro­duc­tion and ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties for farm­ers and the pub­lic in the ar­eas of or­gan­ic and sus­tain­able farm­ing sys­tems as well as in the adop­tion and use of safe new, in­no­v­a­tive and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies in food and agri­cul­ture.

"We be­lieve that pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness, es­pe­cial­ly for the na­tion's youth, on the im­por­tance of con­sum­ing and sup­port­ing lo­cal agri­cul­tur­al out­put is a use­ful strat­e­gy. Farm­ers need as­sis­tance in ex­pand­ing their mar­kets and mar­ket­ing, and so, food safe­ty train­ing and oth­er is­sues should be­come part of ba­sic ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes in agri­cul­ture," the group said."Im­por­tant­ly, Gov­ern­ment sup­port should be made avail­able to pri­vate and non-prof­it sec­tors to main­tain and ex­pand con­sumer ed­u­ca­tion on food safe­ty, over­sight for food safe­ty, and po­ten­tial risks as­so­ci­at­ed with the man­ner in which food is processed be­fore sale. There is al­so the im­per­a­tive to re­duce our TT$ 4 bil­lion per year food im­port bill; al­ter­na­tive­ly, to 'eat what we grow and grow what we eat'.

"Con­sumer ed­u­ca­tion is a pub­lic good that helps con­sumers make in­formed choic­es about their food and nu­tri­tion in­take."The three-day fes­ti­val will fea­ture pre­sen­ta­tions from var­i­ous farm­ers' groups, agro-proces­sors, in­put sup­pli­ers and oth­er stake­hold­ers, as well as ed­u­ca­tion­al booths with in­for­ma­tion and lit­er­a­ture about fruits and ex­ten­sion agri­cul­ture.There will al­so be sale and sam­pling of food, fruits, veg­eta­bles, in­clud­ing an ar­ray of plants, dis­plays of rare and ex­ot­ic fruits, agri­cul­tur­al es­tate tours, and a play area for chil­dren. A va­ri­ety of com­pe­ti­tions will be held in­clud­ing most in­no­v­a­tive fruit dish, best fruit dis­play, best chow, and best fruit carv­ing.