Ali­cia Llanos

A to­tal of 100 wa­ter re­ten­tion ponds, cost­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2.5 mil­lion, have been com­plet­ed by the Min­istry of Food, Land and Ma­rine Re­sources.In­ter­viewed af­ter yes­ter­day's launch of the World Food Day Art and Pho­tog­ra­phy Com­pe­ti­tion at the Queen's Park Oval, Wood­brook, Min­is­ter of Food Pro­duc­tion, Land and Ma­rine Re­sources Vas­ant Bharath said of the 300 ponds slat­ed to be con­struct­ed by next month, 100 had been com­plet­ed.

Bharath said ponds con­struct­ed on hilly or un­even ter­rain cost around $30,000 each while those on flat lands cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $20,000 each.The min­is­ter said the ponds were a part of the On-Farms Ponds Pro­gramme to en­sure farm­ers would have a se­cure wa­ter source dur­ing the dry sea­son.He said the ob­jec­tive was to en­sure food prices re­mained steady through­out the year.Bharath said each pond held ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20,000 to 30,000 gal­lons of wa­ter ac­cord­ing to its size.He said they were strate­gi­cal­ly placed on farm lands with­in the "food bas­ket" ar­eas of T&T, which in­clud­ed Mal­oney, Oropouche, Or­ange Grove, Mo­ra, Cushe, Ca­roni, Clax­ton Bay, Waller­field, Es­mer­al­da Block, Ca­paro, Chatham and For­res Park.

Bharath said in cas­es where farm­ers want­ed to con­struct their own ponds, the min­istry would cov­er 75 per­cent of the cost.He said the min­istry's aim was to con­struct 300 ponds each year over the next three years to pro­vide food se­cu­ri­ty in T&T.Bharath said dur­ing the dry sea­son the min­istry would em­bark on a drainage ex­er­cise in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port.He said to pre­vent farm­lands from flood­ing dur­ing the rainy sea­son, the min­istry would clear, widen and deep­en drains in agri­cul­tur­al ar­eas.Bharath said with T&T's im­port­ed food at $4 bil­lion and ris­ing, Gov­ern­ment had been work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to pro­mote lo­cal­ly grown pro­duce.

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Chair­man of the World Food Day Com­mit­tee, Pauline Dowlath, said the ob­jec­tive of the com­pe­ti­tion was to sen­si­tise na­tions' youth to­wards means to al­le­vi­ate hunger, pro­mote food se­cu­ri­ty and to in­crease their aware­ness about their col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to­wards food pro­duc­tion.The theme of the com­pe­ti­tion is Unit­ed Against Hunger, Our Col­lec­tive Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.The com­pe­ti­tion is open to both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school stu­dents.