During the past few weeks, a variety of issues pertinent to agricultural development have engaged the farming community, the Government and the national population at large in a dialogue not seen perhaps in a decade. Naturally, the availability of food, price affordability, quality and consistency of food supply, particularly fresh agricultural produce, can become quite emotional issues with significant social, economic and political consequences. The current debate, which has been engaging the attention of an enraged population, was triggered by the destruction of food crops almost ready for harvesting and sale at the markets. Perhaps the timing of the bulldozing of the crops, the day of the destruction being on Easter Monday, the presence of rolling television cameras may have provided the perfect backdrop for citizens to dub the action as callous, outrageous, uncaring, wicked and indeed vexatious. The primary issue of the day though seems to revolve around land use policy of the State, consequent upon the desire for "squatting for food production" and "state-funded housing development." Indeed, this can be seen as "land grabbing and a Treasury assault"-farmers operating illegally on lands demanding compensation and land tenure. Squatting is wrong. It is illegal and should not be encouraged, nor sanctioned by the State.
There is a lot of misinformation being peddled out there in respect to the Pineapple Smith lands and Egypt Trace, Chaguanas. Each player, in order to demonstrate greater credibility over the other, is peddling on a daily basis more and more conflicting and misleading information. Amazingly, government ministers are seeking to distance themselves from collective responsibility as ought to be practised in a cabinet of a government. Collectively, some 32 farmers have been cultivating a variety of crops, five at Pineapple Smith lands and 27 at Egypt Trace, Chaguanas, on two estates comprising altogether close to 300 acres of land generating thousands of kilograms of a variety of crops. The Minister of Food Production, Vassant Bharath, under whose portfolio the Commissioner of State Land falls, must be aware that when quit notices were served in March on some of these farmers, that the notices were served to make the lands unencumbered for the purpose of facilitating house construction by the HDC.
So that except the two Ministers of Housing and Food Production are engaged in acting out some scenes, the country must wonder whether the utterances and signals in support of the farmers by Minister Bharath are sincere and credible; and why would Roodal Moonilal, Minister of Housing, appear to be on a collision course with his colleague in full view of the national population.
Here are some facts, based upon the last CSO Agricultural Census of 2004: There are 210,000 acres of farm land available to the country, of which 118,000 or 56 per cent is generally being utilised for some form of crop or livestock production. Of this, 63 per cent or about 12,000 farmers own their lands, 20 per cent or about 4,000 are said to be renting, and some eight per cent or 1,500 were said to be squatting.
If therefore the statistics are correct that collectively some 83 per cent of farmers are in legal possession of land, while approximately five per cent are squatters, this may bring into question the extent to which the much touted statement that land tenure is a constraint to agricultural production.
Squatting on state lands
The challenges of squatter behaviours and possible state actions are very well known by Minister Bharath, who when in Opposition pro-tested the State's attempt to remove squatters in Spring Village, Valsayn. That was a five-acre piece of land. Given the sensitivity which surfaced, the then Minister in the Ministry of Housing, Tina Grunlund-Nunez, apologised to the community and the project was not pursued. But state lands belong to all the people in T&T. It is not for the benefit of a few or for those who may display might-is-right tendencies. Let us pause for a moment and examine the following, which is said to be a part of the statement attributed to Minister Bharath on Morning Edition on April 12: "If tomorrow morning you said to Trinidad and Tobago, to people utilising land (squatters), you ask them to leave, you know what will happen to food in Trinidad and Tobago? It will virtually have no food to eat and it's no fault of their own simply because the ministry has been tardy in allocating lands to people to farm."
There have been several other related utterances by the minister, for example, access by squatters to agricultural incentives, reduced price fertilizers, access to soft loans from the ADB, VAT exemptions etc. This can embolden people to display indiscipline in the sector. A question can then be properly posed, that is, how did farmers or people with a tendency to squat interpret such statements made by a Cabinet minister with responsibility for lands and agricultural production? It is exactly this kind of deliberate indiscretion that will lead to further indiscipline within the agricultural sector. And so the country witnesses people operating illegally on State lands now demanding compensation from the Treasury for crops and land tenure-illegal farming operators now accusing ministers of acting illegally. Meanwhile, in making his case for the use of the lands at Pineapple Smith lands and Egypt Trace, Chaguanas, Minister Moonilal squares off with Minister Bharath for land space, claiming that there are some 126,000 applications pending at the HDC for houses, hence the urgency.
Some in the know argue that in reality, the true number of applicants could be nearer 35,000 when duplicated application are eliminated. If the Minister of Housing were to move swiftly to distribute in the most equitable and orderly manner the existing unoccupied stock of 15,000 housing units built by the PNM, he may then find that the urgent challenge of the notion of "houses before food" is not so urgent after all, except of course there are other motives not yet revealed to the national population. While home construction has social and economic benefits, it is not one of the core business activities of any government. Certainly there is a role for the private sector in home construction. The Government may do well to be advised to consider its role as facilitator in this regard.
Arnold Piggott
Former Minister of Agriculture, Land and Marine Resources