SHAS­TRI BOODAN

A new Gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tive has been launched to en­cour­ate agro-en­tre­pre­neur­ship in non tra­di­tion­al ar­eas.Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj has an­nounced that 20 fam­i­lies will be se­lect­ed for the pi­lot phase of small scale aquapon­ics project.He said the aim was to en­cour­age veg­eta­bles and fish pro­duc­tion in small, back yard fa­cil­i­ties.

Ma­haraj made the an­non­ce­ment when he hand­ed over the first aquapon­ic unit to the Ro­tary Club of St Au­gus­tine.The event took place at Val­sayn South where a train­ing fa­cil­i­ty is to be es­tab­lished.He said it was the first time his min­istry was part­ner­ing with an NGO for that type of project like this.The club will se­lect peo­ple for the project and sup­ply them with the units. The min­is­ter said the sys­tem was or­gan­ic and was in­tend­ed to yield short term crops.

"It is hoped that these pro­grammes will play a cru­cial role in re­duc­ing crime in at-risk ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties by em­pow­er­ing cit­i­zens with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to not on­ly be self suf­fi­cient but al­so en­gage in en­tre­pre­neur­ial ac­tiv­i­ties rather than turn to a life of crime to earn mon­ey," he said.

Ma­haraj said aquapon­ics had been in T&T for the past two decades there had not been the po­lit­i­cal will to pro­mote that type of food pro­duc­tion. He said the sys­tem is cheap and us­es PVC pipes to grow plants such as herbs, let­tuce and cab­bages and fish like tilapia.Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, T&T's agri­cul­ture sec­tor ex­pand­ed by 5.1 per cent this year from the pre­vi­ous year and the con­tri­bu­tion of the sec­tor to GDP has­in­creased by 77 per cent since 2009.