Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try, Paula Gopee-Scoon, toured the agro-pro­cess­ing fa­cil­i­ty of iFarmTT Ltd. (iFarm) lo­cat­ed at the Moru­ga Agro-Pro­cess­ing and Light In­dus­tri­al Park.

iFarm, a re­cip­i­ent of the Min­istry’s Grant Fund Fa­cil­i­ty (GFF) for $250 thou­sand has utilised the Moru­ga Agro-Pro­cess­ing and Light In­dus­tri­al Park to fur­ther ex­pand its op­er­a­tions in re­sponse to in­creas­ing mar­ket de­mand for its agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts, pro­duced through in­door ver­ti­cal farm­ing.

The tour, led by iFram Di­rec­tors David John­ston and Nicholas Nan­ton, pro­vid­ed Min­is­ter Gopee-Scoon with de­tailed in­sight in­to the new ma­chin­ery and equip­ment ac­quired through the GFF grant for the pro­duc­tion of veg­eta­bles, sal­ad mix­es and mush­rooms. The four-year-old agri-tech firm, which leased one of the fac­to­ry shells at the park in April 2023, utilis­es Ver­ti­cal Farm­ing and Con­trolled En­vi­ron­ment Agri­cul­ture (CEA). The tech­nique elim­i­nates the need for tra­di­tion­al ap­proach­es such as raz­ing or clear­ing forest­ed ar­eas, and oth­er nat­ur­al habi­tats for agri­cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment and fo­cus­es on the cul­ti­va­tion of fresh pro­duce year-round. The com­pa­ny pro­duces sev­er­al leafy green prod­ucts for lo­cal re­tail stores, home de­liv­ery and restau­rants. 

Dur­ing the tour, John­ston ex­plained that the com­pa­ny pro­duces a qual­i­ty lo­cal prod­uct, with no pes­ti­cides or in­sec­ti­cides and specif­i­cal­ly har­vests 1500 plants per day, ex­clud­ing its pro­duc­tion of mush­rooms. With the po­ten­tial for ex­port, the com­pa­ny is look­ing to­ward medi­um to long-term growth. Min­is­ter Gopee-Scoon com­mend­ed iFarm on its on­go­ing im­prove­ment and ex­pan­sion, not­ing the com­pa­ny’s use of tech­nol­o­gy through on­line con­trolled sys­tems. 

The coun­try’s first Agro-Pro­cess­ing Park, the Moru­ga Agro-Pro­cess­ing and Light In­dus­tri­al Park, which opened in 2020, con­tin­ues to ben­e­fit sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties through the cre­ation of em­ploy­ment and op­por­tu­ni­ties for busi­ness growth. The oth­er park ten­ants, which are in var­i­ous stages of op­er­a­tions, in­clude food-pro­cess­ing com­pa­nies Woods­man Caribbean Lim­it­ed, Caribbean Spe­cial­ty Foods, Trinidad Choco­late Fac­to­ry and Roy­al Dates. The Park’s in­fra­struc­ture in­cludes an es­tab­lished road net­work, all nec­es­sary util­i­ties (telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, elec­tri­cal and wa­ter sup­ply, drainage, sew­er­age and a waste treat­ment fa­cil­i­ty), fac­to­ry shells out­fit­ted with of­fices and wash­rooms, and cold stor­age spaces where need­ed.

Prime Min­is­ter, Dr. Kei­th Row­ley of­fi­cial­ly opened the Moru­ga Agro-Pro­cess­ing and Light In­dus­tri­al Park, which is owned and man­aged by Evolv­ing Tec­knolo­gies and En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (eTeck), on Ju­ly 15, 2020.