The ris­ing cost-of-liv­ing and food price volatil­i­ty have been na­tion­al talk­ing points for weeks ahead of this week’s an­nounce­ment that the Na­tion­al Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion is set for Oc­to­ber 12.

How­ev­er, stake­hold­ers in both the re­tail and agri­cul­ture sec­tors hope Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo’s pre­sen­ta­tion will in­clude fis­cal poli­cies that strength­en do­mes­tic sup­ply chains, boost lo­cal pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty, and build a val­ue chain in­creas­ing the link be­tween farms and su­per­mar­ket shelves.

T&T’s food im­port spend­ing ex­ceed­ed $7.3 bil­lion in 2024, which con­sul­tants have ar­gued con­tributed to the for­eign ex­change strain fac­ing the coun­try, while al­so ex­pos­ing lo­cal house­holds and busi­ness­es to se­vere ex­ter­nal shocks.

In a re­cent in­ter­view with Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, Kevin Kissoon, the new­ly elect­ed Pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SATT), not­ed that shocks such as geopo­lit­i­cal con­flicts in Eu­rope and the Mid­dle East, fu­el price spikes, Pana­ma Canal tran­sit re­stric­tions and fluc­tu­at­ing ocean freight rates all pushed up im­port costs.

He said, “We face much of the same is­sues as all re­tail­ers glob­al­ly when it comes to sup­ply chain is­sues, com­pound­ed by the ef­fects of the geopo­lit­i­cal is­sues, in­clud­ing in Ukraine and Iran. These have a di­rect im­pact on fu­el and ship­ping costs.

“Once fu­el is touched, that’s where prob­lems start. A dis­rup­tion in an­oth­er part of the world can af­fect ship­ping and avail­abil­i­ty, wait times, and ul­ti­mate­ly the cost of bring­ing prod­ucts in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

This, he said, un­der­lined the need for greater lo­cal pro­duc­tion, a man­date the new­ly ap­point­ed SATT board is plan­ning to cham­pi­on.

“My goal along­side the SATT board is to strength­en that as a unit­ed, cred­i­ble, and re­al­ly a proac­tive voice for the su­per­mar­ket in­dus­try. I want to have stronger en­gage­ment with Gov­ern­ment sup­pli­ers, man­u­fac­tur­ers, farm­ers, ser­vice providers, and all these oth­er stake­hold­ers in or­der to build a stronger, sus­tain­able, and re­al­ly more re­silient su­per­mar­ket sec­tor,” Kissoon said.

“It re­al­ly means that every­one through­out the sup­ply chain has to be more at­ten­tive to plan­ning and man­ag­ing those dis­rup­tions as best as pos­si­ble for su­per­mar­kets. That in­cludes for su­per­mar­kets on our end. That in­cludes pur­chas­ing, in­ven­to­ry plan­ning, but it al­so re­quires strong re­la­tion­ships with sup­pli­ers and im­porters, dis­trib­u­tors, and all oth­er part­ners in that ecosys­tem,” he con­tin­ued.

“It has al­so re­al­ly re­in­forced the im­por­tance of de­vel­op­ing our lo­cal pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty, and I want to em­pha­sise that where we can sup­port qual­i­ty lo­cal prod­ucts, that gives the coun­try an­oth­er source of sup­ply and can con­tribute to greater re­silience.”

Lead agri­cul­ture and busi­ness con­sul­tant at Trop­i­cal Agri­cul­ture Con­sul­tan­cy Ser­vices, Riyadh Mo­hammed, said con­sis­tent lo­cal pro­duc­tion of veg­eta­bles, root crops, fruits, eggs, poul­try, fish and se­lect­ed live­stock prod­ucts can help mod­er­ate price volatil­i­ty, al­though he ad­mit­ted it was not an im­me­di­ate fix but there were oth­er ben­e­fits to push­ing greater lo­cal food pro­duc­tion.

He ex­plained, “Do­mes­tic pro­duc­tion does not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly mean low­er re­tail prices; farm­ers must still pay for feed, fer­tilis­er, pack­ag­ing, trans­port, labour, wa­ter, en­er­gy and fi­nance. How­ev­er, a well-or­gan­ised lo­cal val­ue chain can re­duce ex­po­sure to in­ter­na­tion­al freight costs, ex­change-rate pres­sures, over­seas weath­er events and sup­ply dis­rup­tions.”

He said El Niño-re­lat­ed dry con­di­tions re­in­forced the fact that agri­cul­ture in T&T can­not de­pend sole­ly on rain­fall, un­der­lin­ing the need to treat wa­ter as a pro­duc­tive agri­cul­tur­al in­put that must be stored, man­aged and used ef­fi­cient­ly.

Mo­hammed said, “Wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty and ir­ri­ga­tion should be among the high­est pri­or­i­ties. This in­cludes re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of ex­ist­ing ir­ri­ga­tion schemes, con­struc­tion of farm ponds and wa­ter-stor­age sys­tems, greater use of rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing, in­stal­la­tion of drip ir­ri­ga­tion and im­prove­ment of agri­cul­tur­al drainage.

“These in­vest­ments would make dry-sea­son pro­duc­tion more re­li­able, re­duce loss­es dur­ing drought pe­ri­ods and al­low farm­ers to plan their pro­duc­tion with greater con­fi­dence.”

He al­so felt the gov­ern­ment should place greater fo­cus on cli­mate-smart and pro­tect­ed pro­duc­tion sys­tems such as Green­hous­es, shade hous­es, hy­dro­pon­ic sys­tems, fer­ti­ga­tion and in­sect-ex­clu­sion struc­tures, which he said could im­prove con­sis­ten­cy in the pro­duc­tion of veg­eta­bles, herbs and oth­er high-val­ue crops.

He said, “These sys­tems should be sup­port­ed where they are com­mer­cial­ly fea­si­ble and where farm­ers have ad­e­quate tech­ni­cal train­ing, mar­kets and fi­nanc­ing. The ob­jec­tive should be to in­crease re­li­able year-round sup­ply, rather than sim­ply dis­trib­ut­ing equip­ment.”

Both Kissoon and Mo­hammed not­ed the im­pact of live­stock short­ages, which al­so need to be stressed. No­tably, Trinidad and To­ba­go suf­fered a chick­en short­age which im­pact­ed cus­tomers around the coun­try, and as re­port­ed in last week’s Busi­ness Guardian, meat prices have con­sis­tent­ly in­creased at gro­cery stores around the coun­try.

Kissoon not­ed that, to ad­dress the chick­en short­age, su­per­mar­ket man­age­ment worked close­ly with lo­cal pro­duc­ers and dis­trib­u­tors to main­tain stocked dis­play chillers, ef­fec­tive­ly shield­ing con­sumers from wide­spread avail­abil­i­ty crises de­spite pub­lic anx­i­ety, un­der­lin­ing how lo­cal sup­ply can be ben­e­fi­cial.

Mo­hammed said, “Live­stock and feed re­silience should re­ceive greater at­ten­tion. Lo­cal live­stock pro­duc­ers face sig­nif­i­cant ex­po­sure to im­port­ed feed costs and sup­ply dis­rup­tions.

“In­vest­ment in for­age pro­duc­tion, pas­ture re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, feed test­ing, feed stor­age, al­ter­na­tive feed in­gre­di­ents, an­i­mal-health sur­veil­lance and ge­net­ic im­prove­ment can help sta­bilise pro­duc­tion of meat, milk and eggs. These ini­tia­tives should be linked to im­proved farm records, tech­ni­cal sup­port and com­mer­cial­ly vi­able pro­duc­tion sys­tems.”

He had not­ed that red tape bu­reau­cra­cy, which of­ten blocked as­pir­ing farm­ers from ac­cess­ing in­cen­tives an­nounced in the bud­get, should be ad­dressed. In pre­vi­ous bud­gets, there had been ex­emp­tions such as VAT re­lief on agri­cul­tur­al ma­chin­ery, equip­ment, green­house and hy­dro­pon­ic com­po­nents, along with du­ty con­ces­sions on feed for live­stock pro­duc­ers.

He said while this can re­duce cap­i­tal and op­er­at­ing costs, “ the ben­e­fits must be ac­ces­si­ble to le­git­i­mate pro­duc­ers and should not be un­der­mined by ad­min­is­tra­tive de­lays, un­clear el­i­gi­bil­i­ty re­quire­ments or lim­it­ed sup­pli­er avail­abil­i­ty.”

Mo­hammed stressed that by co­or­di­nat­ing fis­cal pol­i­cy with farm-lev­el ex­e­cu­tion and re­tail shelf man­age­ment, Trinidad and To­ba­go can trans­form its agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor in­to a pow­er­ful en­gine of eco­nom­ic re­silience that pro­tects con­sumer pur­chas­ing pow­er.