Food Production Minister Vasant Bharath has promised that food prices in T&T will begin to drop within three to four months. He said that during an interview with reporters during yesterday's Senate teabreak at the Red House, Port-of-Spain. Bharath added that within the coming weeks citizens would be able to buy cassava fries at KFC and Royal Castle. He said the $4 billion annual food import bill was expected to be reduced within the next three to five years. Dealing specifically with the reduction in food prices, Bharath said: "Within another three to four months we should start to see the effects of what we have done." He said by that time the Government would have constructed 300 irrigation ponds, more than 200 kilometres of access roads, launched the praedial larceny programme and implement a new incentive programme.
Bharath said in order to reduce the food import bill "we are looking to substitute wheat flour with cassava flour." He said leading restaurants in T&T already have agreed to sell cassava chips in the coming weeks. "We've just got our foot in the door with KFC and Royal Castle to sell cassava chips over their counters," he added. Asked when would restaurants begin selling cassava chips to the public, he said: "We are in the final rounds of testing and tasting, so I would say within two months." He said it would the first time any of the restaurants would be selling the commodity, which, he said, was more nutritious that what was now being sold.
Bharath said because of a lack of infrastructure the price of food had increased significantly over the past several years. He said his ministry would establish at least nine mega farms across the country after a review of the existing arrangements were completed. He said the crops to be produced on the mega farms would not be the same as produced by the regular farms across the country. He said sweet corn was to be produced at a farm in Felicity, rice at Edinburgh and tomatoes at Orange Grove. He said the tomatoes grown at that farm would be for the ketchup industry. Bharath said the mega farm at Tucker Valley, Chaguaramas, would produce onions.