The Co­op­er­a­tive Cred­it Union Move­ment is call­ing on Gov­ern­ment to fast track im­ple­men­ta­tion of a na­tion­al food se­cu­ri­ty plan im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the COVID-19 spread is con­tained.

Pres­i­dent of the Cen­tral Fi­nance Fa­cil­i­ty (CFF) Leti­tia Teles­ford said the cred­it union move­ment has praised the Gov­ern­ment and how it has han­dled the sit­u­a­tion to date.

How­ev­er, she not­ed that a food se­cu­ri­ty plan could min­imise the de­pen­dence on im­port­ed food dur­ing and af­ter the COVID-19 cri­sis.

“We need to de­vel­op and im­ple­ment a plan that will lead to the pro­duc­tion of three months con­sump­tion of short-term crops with­in a six week pe­ri­od and month­ly pro­duc­tion there­after, that could feed the coun­try in the fu­ture,” Teles­ford rec­om­mend­ed.

She added this will in­volve a co­op­er­a­tive ef­fort of Gov­ern­ment and or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the Farm­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tions, the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T, the Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety of T&T, co­op­er­a­tives based in the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, cred­it unions and pri­vate in­di­vid­u­als.

Urg­ing for or­gan­i­sa­tions to come to­geth­er, Teles­ford said they must al­so max­imise the acreage of land un­der cul­ti­va­tion to so that the coun­try can feed it’s peo­ple sus­tain­ably.

In ad­di­tion, more lo­cal food pro­duc­tion can lead to a re­duced need for for­eign ex­change, she not­ed.

“In­di­vid­u­als own­ing un­cul­ti­vat­ed land must be will­ing to make it avail­able to gov­ern­ment and share in the re­turns. Sim­i­lar­ly em­ploy­ment pro­grams like URP and CEPEP must be re­de­ployed to land cul­ti­va­tion and food pro­duc­tion. Teles­ford ad­vised.