This week guest columnist VASANT BHARATH Minister of Food Production, Land and Marine Affairs continues his six part series in this space on what incentives the government is giving farmers towards the national goal of food security.
In October, we will commence a programme to bring on board fifty University agricultural graduates on an annual basis through our Young Professional in Agriculture Development and Mentoring Programme. The major objective of which is to provide structured, focused and closely monitored opportunities for these tertiary level graduates to be mentored in agriculture and related studies. Allowing them to be productive contributors to the development of the agricultural sector. We continue our "home gardening" initiative primarily through community based training. We are soon to launch an advertising campaign to encourage nationals to grow their immediate agriculture needs.
Our Extension, Training and Information Services Division (ETIS) has developed some interesting "how to" videos that you can access to guide you to successfully set up your home garden. We also have a home gardening series, which teaches you in a simple step by step process, how to grow bodi, hot pepper, seasoning herb, melongene, pakchoi, ochro, pumpkin, lettuce, cabbage, and tomato. We need to realise that buying local and eating local is not simply a matter of being patriotic. Rather it is a call to eat healthy and preserve our way of life, our culture. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), a ten per cent increase in food prices has pushed a further forty million people into poverty.
It is estimated that by 2050, there will be a population of 9.5 billion people. And from where would these people be fed? Our country has all the resources to produce almost all the food we need and even more. We have the ideal climate, we have an abundance of arable land and we have the most important resource, our people. Our country has been importing the most basic foods indicative of the more than four billion dollars annually on food imports. We can grow most of these foods here at home. We cannot continue to depend on the world to feed us. Our country can only be truly independent and self-sufficient when we can feed ourselves, and both the Ministry staff and I are committed to implementing long-term measures to effect positive changes on the local landscape of agriculture.
We are committed to continuous work, in close collaboration with all key stakeholders, as we seek to promote greater consensus in our goal of "creating a food secure nation," reducing inflation, preserving much needed foreign exchange, diversifying our economy, and producing long term, sustainable employment in the sector. Currently nine commercial large farms have been earmarked. Three are currently in production. An additional two have been commissioned within the last two months, namely the Edinburgh Farms and Two2 Brothers Corporation, producing sweet corn, hot pepper, plantains, papaya, sweet potato, purple cabbage, tomatoes, onions and rice respectively.
A comprehensive monitoring and co-ordination of the production and marketing of the large farms in production is to be put in place. Production on large farms will be in accordance with production schedules which are to form part of the leases. Planned and organised production and marketing of large farms will avoid any competition of these farms with small farmers. In addition the goal of sustainable fisheries management is the regulation of access to fisheries and aligning fishing capacity with resource availability. Together with the fisherfolk, we identified basic needs to be met at the sixty-five neglected fish land sites around Trinidad.
These included paved access roads, security lighting, repairs to leaking roofs, secure storage or locker rooms, potable water, toilets and bathroom facilities and better structures to contribute to fish health and human health and safety. However, due to budgetary constraints, we decided, within this fiscal year to upgrade the facilities at sixteen of these sites. Thus far, we have commissioned the sites at Morne Diablo, Balandra, Maracas and Cocorite. Within the next few months, we will commission the others, including San Souci, Fullerton, Erin, Claxton Bay, Carli Bay, Otaheite, Grande Riviere, Toco, Cumana, Point Radix, La Ruffin and Alcan Bay. All these activities are premised on the national goal of "creating a food secure nation".
If you wish to contribute to this guest series send in your ideas to Ira Mathur at irasroom@gmail.com or cleaningupthemess@guardian.co.tt and join our facebook page on http://www.facebook.com/cleaningupthemess?ref=ts