Riyadh Mo­hammed

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As a core com­po­nent of de­vel­op­ing economies, the main source of in­come for many, the cor­ner­stone of food se­cu­ri­ty and a means of re­duc­ing pover­ty, agri­cul­ture is vi­tal in emerg­ing na­tions like T&T. It can make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to GDP and ex­por rev­enue and em­ploys a siz­able sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in rur­al ar­eas, if done cor­rect­ly.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, agri­cul­tur­al growth fre­quent­ly rais­es the earn­ings of the poor­est peo­ple more ef­fec­tive­ly than oth­er sec­tors. Along with pro­vid­ing se­mi-skilled la­bor and the abil­i­ty to cre­ate cap­i­tal for in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment, the sec­tor al­so fos­ters eco­nom­ic growth through its for­ward and back­ward link­ages with oth­er in­dus­tries. In­creased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, bet­ter in­fra­struc­ture, tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­tion and the sus­tain­able use of nat­ur­al re­sources are all re­sults of strate­gic agri­cul­tur­al in­vest­ments and these out­comes all con­tribute to larg­er ob­jec­tives of so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

Im­pact on rur­al pover­ty re­duc­tion

In T&T, agri­cul­tur­al ex­pan­sion is es­sen­tial to re­duc­ing rur­al pover­ty be­cause, de­spite its minute con­tri­bu­tion to GDP (<2.0 per cent), the sec­tor sup­ports more than 4 per cent of jobs, es­pe­cial­ly in rur­al re­gions, and sup­ports liveli­hoods oth­er than farm­ing. Small­hold­er and fam­i­ly farm­ers can make mon­ey in the agri­cul­ture sec­tor, es­pe­cial­ly in rur­al ar­eas with high rates of pover­ty like North-East Trinidad. Ex­pand­ing sus­tain­able agro-eco­log­i­cal farm­ing meth­ods and di­ver­si­fy­ing in­to non-tra­di­tion­al ex­port crops have been found to be ef­fec­tive ways to in­crease agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion and eco­nom­ic po­ten­tial in these re­gions.

By rais­ing house­hold in­comes, gen­er­at­ing jobs and im­prov­ing food se­cu­ri­ty in rur­al ar­eas, agri­cul­tur­al growth helps to re­duce pover­ty. In or­der to in­crease farm­ers’ prof­its and lessen rur­al pover­ty, stud­ies stress the sig­nif­i­cance of com­mer­cial­iza­tion, sus­tain­able prac­tices and bet­ter mar­ket ac­cess through tools like food hubs. In rur­al T&T, in­vest­ments in in­fra­struc­ture, agri­cul­tur­al prod­uct di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and farmer ca­pac­i­ty train­ing can boost the econ­o­my and raise liv­ing stan­dards. Fur­ther­more, by sup­ply­ing steady sources of in­come and food avail­abil­i­ty, agri­cul­tur­al growth can sig­nif­i­cant­ly lessen vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with pover­ty.

The in­dus­try faces ob­sta­cles like a lack of work­ers and sys­temic lim­i­ta­tions that may re­strict agri­cul­tur­al growth and its abil­i­ty to al­le­vi­ate pover­ty. The ef­fects of wel­fare em­ploy­ment pro­grammes have been var­ied, oc­ca­sion­al­ly tak­ing re­sources away from prof­itable farm­ing op­er­a­tions. All things con­sid­ered, one of the best strate­gies to lessen rur­al pover­ty in this coun­try is to em­brace agri­cul­tur­al ex­pan­sion, es­pe­cial­ly through val­ue chain di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, agro-eco­log­i­cal prac­tices and as­sis­tance for small­hold­ers.

Sup­port sys­tems need­ed for farm­ing and agro pro­cess­ing

- In­vest­ments in land prepa­ra­tion, farm equip­ment, ir­ri­ga­tion, post-har­vest and pro­cess­ing fa­cil­i­ties, an­i­mal fa­cil­i­ties, soil con­ser­va­tion, pest con­trol, and young farmer start-ups, farm­ers can get grants and sub­si­dies through the Agri­cul­tur­al In­cen­tive Pro­gramme. For sev­er­al com­modi­ties, the pro­gramme al­so es­tab­lish­es min­i­mum guar­an­teed pric­ing.

- Ini­tia­tives for in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment that as­sist pro­duc­tion and mar­ket­ing in­clude the con­struc­tion of pack­ing hous­es and whole­sale mar­ket­places, the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of ir­ri­ga­tion in­fra­struc­ture, and agri­cul­tur­al ac­cess roads.

- Pro­grammes for youth en­gage­ment, such as the Agri­cul­ture Pro­fes­sion­al De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (APDP) and the Youth Ap­pren­tice­ship Pro­gramme in Agri­cul­ture (YA­PA), were de­signed to en­cour­age young peo­ple to work in the field and build their ca­reers.

- Agri­cul­tur­al re­search, ex­ten­sion ser­vices and mar­ket­ing are sup­port­ed by or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Mar­ket­ing and De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Namde­v­co), Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), and Caribbean Agri­cul­tur­al Re­search & De­vel­op­ment In­sti­tute (CAR­DI).

- Farm­ers can in­vest in their op­er­a­tions with flex­i­ble short- and long-term loans from the Agri­cul­tur­al De­vel­op­ment Bank (ADB). Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the ADB pro­motes food se­cu­ri­ty and back­yard gar­den­ing through pro­grammes like their Seedling Dri­ves.

- Un­der na­tion­al frame­works like the Na­tion­al Adap­ta­tion Strat­e­gy and the Road Map to Re­cov­ery, poli­cies ad­dressed food se­cu­ri­ty, cli­mate adap­tion, and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

- Ad­di­tion­al in­cen­tives to low­er pro­duc­ers’ ex­pens­es in­clude VAT ex­emp­tions on se­lect­ed agri­cul­tur­al items.

Im­pacts of cli­mate change on food pro­duc­tion

Ex­treme weath­er events in­clud­ing floods, droughts, and hot spells are be­com­ing more fre­quent and se­vere in this sec­tor. These oc­cur­rences have a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on crop pro­duc­tion, low­er­ing yields and rais­ing crop death. These cir­cum­stances dam­age farm­ers’ prof­its and in­ter­fere with sched­uled pro­duc­tion cy­cles. Pro­longed dry spells and ex­ces­sive rain­fall harm agri­cul­tur­al land and low­er soil fer­til­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in coastal re­gions that are sus­cep­ti­ble to sea lev­el rise. This re­sults in dif­fi­cul­ties with ir­ri­ga­tion and wa­ter man­age­ment as well as the loss of fer­tile agri­cul­tur­al land and ed­i­ble food prod­ucts.

In­creased in­ci­dence of pests and ill­ness­es brought on by cli­mate vari­abil­i­ty and faster crop mat­u­ra­tion wors­en crop out­put loss­es, en­dan­ger­ing food se­cu­ri­ty even more. In­creased heat stress and re­lat­ed mor­tal­i­ty have a detri­men­tal ef­fect on live­stock pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and the liveli­hoods of in­di­vid­u­als who de­pend on an­i­mal hus­bandry. Phys­i­cal as­sets such as farm in­fra­struc­ture, ma­chin­ery, seeds, and rur­al in­fra­struc­ture in­clud­ing ac­cess roads and bridges are al­so dam­aged in the agri­cul­ture sec­tor, which low­ers farm­ers’ mo­ti­va­tion and op­er­at­ing ca­pac­i­ty.

So­lu­tions for T&T to de­vel­op sec­tor

One im­por­tant tac­tic to boost re­gion­al food pro­duc­tion is com­mu­ni­ty-based agri­cul­ture. This strat­e­gy im­proves nu­tri­tion and lessens re­liance on im­ports by en­abling com­mu­ni­ties and small-scale farm­ers to grow food lo­cal­ly. Cru­cial el­e­ments in­clude in­put sup­ply, tech­ni­cal sup­port, and sup­port­ing in­fra­struc­ture. In or­der to de­crease en­vi­ron­men­tal ef­fect and in­crease re­silience to cli­mat­ic un­pre­dictabil­i­ty, cli­mate-smart farm­ing tech­niques are strong­ly pro­mot­ed. These in­clude soil con­ser­va­tion meth­ods that in­crease pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in a sus­tain­able way, rain­wa­ter gath­er­ing, or­gan­ic farm­ing (of which we have no cer­ti­fy­ing body), and pro­tect­ed agri­cul­ture (green­hous­es).

The cre­ation of buffer funds and en­hanced pay­ment sys­tems aid in re­solv­ing the cash flow is­sues that farm­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly small­hold­ers, are con­front­ed with. Farm­ers’ fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty is sup­port­ed and in­creased pro­duc­tion is en­cour­aged by prompt pay­ments for food de­liv­ered to mar­kets/su­per­mar­kets. Val­ue chain con­nec­tions, in­put sub­si­dies, and mar­ket ac­cess can all be en­hanced by aid­ing agri­cul­tur­al co­op­er­a­tives and as­so­ci­a­tions. Farm­ers can bet­ter man­age their sup­ply, ob­tain fi­nance, and max­i­mize sales by for­ti­fy­ing these as­so­ci­a­tions.

It is cru­cial to im­prove tech­ni­cal train­ing, ex­ten­sion ser­vices, and re­search. Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and qual­i­ty foods are fa­cil­i­tat­ed by pro­grams that as­sist farm­ers in learn­ing sus­tain­able prac­tices, pest con­trol, post-har­vest han­dling, and mar­ket trends. By mak­ing in­vest­ments in in­fra­struc­ture, fund­ing, and mar­ket growth, gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions hope to fos­ter a com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment through pol­i­cy and strate­gic plan­ning.

Pri­or­i­ty one should be giv­en to co­or­di­nat­ing agri­cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment with more gen­er­al na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment ob­jec­tives, such as ex­port di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty. Crop di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and the cre­ation of val­ue-added prod­ucts cre­ate new do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket prospects. Farm­ers’ eco­nom­ic po­ten­tial is in­creased by cre­at­ing nov­el prod­ucts from tra­di­tion­al­ly grown op­tions.

Riyadh Mo­hammed is the lead agri­cul­ture con­sul­tant Trop­i­cal Agri­cul­ture Con­sul­tan­cy Ser­vices. He can be con­tact­ed at riyadhmo­hammed07@gmail.com