Michelle Loubon

Caribbean agri­cul­tur­ists must strive to achieve sus­tain­able func­tion­ing and food se­cu­ri­ty by nur­tur­ing the soil that is used for food pro­duc­tion to pre­vent it from degra­da­tion. Pes­ti­cide overuse re­sults in con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of wa­ter re­sources and in­creased cost of crop pro­duc­tion.

In an ef­fort to stamp out these neg­a­tive agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices, agri­cul­tur­al ex­ten­sion lec­tur­er Dr Wayne Gan­pat at­tempt­ed to ed­u­cate Caribbean farm­ers about soil con­ser­va­tion and the abuse of pes­ti­cides. Gan­pat and his col­league/co-au­thor Dr Wendy-Ann Isaacs penned the vol­ume Sus­tain­able Food Pro­duc­tion Prac­tices in the Caribbean. The duo lec­tures in Agri­cul­tur­al Ex­ten­sion at the Fac­ul­ty of Food and Agri­cul­ture, UWI, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus. They be­lieve the mes­sage on sus­tain­able food pro­duc­tion prac­tices is time­ly since World Food Day is cel­e­brat­ed to­day.

World Food Day is cel­e­brat­ed in ho­n­our of the date of the found­ing of the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Unit­ed Na­tions in 1945. It is al­so the Food En­gi­neer day. Its theme for 2012 is "Agri­cul­tur­al co-op­er­a­tives-key to feed­ing the world."

In­ter­viewed on Wednes­day, Gan­pat said: "The book fo­cus­es on Caribbean farm­ers. It ad­vo­cates soil con­ser­va­tion prac­tices. It is not Trinidad-fo­cused; it is about soil con­ser­va­tion in St Vin­cent. Soils fil­ter wa­ter, fil­ter waste and reg­u­late the com­po­si­tion of the at­mos­phere. It is about rain, wa­ter­sheds and a range of soils (sandy clays, loams and pod­zols). With­out soils, there can be no crops and live­stock."

Gan­pat added:?"We find farm­ers abuse pes­ti­cides. There is the prac­tice of mulching. It is one of the tra­di­tion­al prac­tices. When the soils are or­gan­i­cal­ly test­ed, we find there is a high per­cent­age of fer­tilis­ers. We find farm­ers abuse fer­tilis­ers across the Caribbean."

Isaacs, a grad­u­ate of Ari­ma Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School, said: "We are ad­vo­cat­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty for crops and live­stock. We are look­ing at green­house tech­nol­o­gy. We are look­ing at crop pro­tec­tion. We are look­ing at an in­te­grat­ed ap­proach to eco­log­i­cal prac­tices. An in­te­grat­ed ap­proach to pest man­age­ment prac­tices. We are ad­vo­cat­ing good agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices...an agro-eco­log­i­cal ap­proach."

Gan­pat felt a "cul­tur­al change" would bring about a pos­i­tive re­sponse to the sus­tain­able food pro­duc­tion prac­tices which they are en­cour­ag­ing Caribbean agri­cul­tur­ists to adopt.

More In­fo: • wendy-ann.isaacs@sta.uwi.edu

or wayne.gan­pat@sta.uwi.edu

Con­tact: 792-1721 (c)?341-0066 (c)