Yvonne Webb

Farm­ers are warn­ing cit­i­zens to brace them­selves for a short­age of sor­rel and a hike in prices of the pop­u­lar sea­son­al fare this Christ­mas sea­son. They are blam­ing Hous­ing and En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal for this sit­u­a­tion, say­ing he sanc­tioned the bull­doz­ing of lands where sor­rel was be­ing cul­ti­vat­ed at Dass Trace and Egypt Trace, ear­li­er this year.

"Dass Trace alone used to pro­duce some 3,000 bags of sor­rel a year and em­ployed over 50 peo­ple," pres­i­dent of the Sheep and Goat Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Sher­az Khan said yes­ter­day.He added that while Paramin pro­duced some sor­rel, it was more of a sea­son­ing-pro­duc­ing com­mu­ni­ty and would not be able to sat­is­fy the de­mand of all of T&T.

Khan said he be­lieved at­tempts would be made to im­port sor­rel, but he warned that if this was done, the prices would be much high­er.Mooni­lal did not re­spond to calls for a com­ment on the mat­ter yes­ter­day.