Jew­el Greene-George

Every Oc­to­ber 16, the world turns its at­ten­tion to the peren­ni­al chal­lenge of hunger and food se­cu­ri­ty, ob­serv­ing World Food Day (WFD). Yet, in To­ba­go, this day is not a sin­gu­lar ob­ser­vance but a mul­ti-week, deeply im­pact­ful state­ment. It is a pow­er­ful ex­hi­bi­tion, both lit­er­al­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly, of a small is­land’s de­ter­mined march to­ward self-suf­fi­cien­cy in the face of daunt­ing glob­al pres­sures.

Far from a mere cal­en­dar en­try, the an­nu­al WFD cel­e­bra­tions, spear­head­ed by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s (THA) Di­vi­sion of Food Se­cu­ri­ty, Nat­ur­al Re­sources, the En­vi­ron­ment and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment, have be­come a crit­i­cal na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion, one you should be pay­ing at­ten­tion to.

To un­der­stand the ur­gency dri­ving To­ba­go’s fo­cus, one must grasp the broad­er Caribbean con­text. Our re­gion has one of the high­est lev­els of food in­se­cu­ri­ty glob­al­ly, with stag­ger­ing sta­tis­tics point­ing to a pre­car­i­ous re­liance on ex­ter­nal mar­kets. Con­sid­er this: the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty’s (Cari­com) re­gion­al food im­port bill is cur­rent­ly es­ti­mat­ed at around US$5 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly. For Trinidad and To­ba­go specif­i­cal­ly, the food im­port bill con­sis­tent­ly re­mains in the range of TT$6 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly, high­light­ing a sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. This de­pen­den­cy means that glob­al sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions—like the war-re­lat­ed chal­lenges with car­go ves­sel ser­vices—can in­stant­ly trans­late in­to emp­ty shelves, spik­ing prices, and height­ened food in­se­cu­ri­ty across the is­land.

The need to “grow what we eat and eat what we grow” is not a na­tion­al slo­gan; it is an eco­nom­ic and ex­is­ten­tial im­per­a­tive.

The cel­e­bra­tion sea­son in To­ba­go, of­ten stretch­ing from Sep­tem­ber to No­vem­ber, is struc­tured to con­front this de­pen­den­cy head-on. The two-day World Food Day Grand Ex­hi­bi­tion, typ­i­cal­ly host­ed at the Shaw Park Food Hub or the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um Pa­rade Grounds, is the apex of this ef­fort.

Here, the cel­e­bra­tions tran­si­tion from ab­stract pol­i­cy in­to tan­gi­ble pro­duce. Thou­sands of vis­i­tors, from fam­i­lies to hote­liers, flock to the booths show­cas­ing crops, live­stock, and in­no­v­a­tive agro-processed goods. It is a mas­sive agri­cul­tur­al trade fair, but with a deep­er ed­u­ca­tion­al mis­sion.

For in­stance, past WFD events have cham­pi­oned the “Food He­roes”—the small farm­ers, fish­er­folk, and en­tre­pre­neurs who form the back­bone of the is­land’s pro­duc­tive sec­tor. The Sec­re­tary of Food Se­cu­ri­ty for the THA has re­peat­ed­ly stressed the crit­i­cal role of these lo­cal pro­duc­ers, align­ing To­ba­go’s ini­tia­tives with the Unit­ed Na­tions Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goal 2: Ze­ro Hunger.

From farm to fu­ture:
In­no­va­tion and in­vest­ment

The mod­ern World Food Day in To­ba­go is less about tra­di­tion and more about trans­for­ma­tion. Re­cent events have moved be­yond the sim­ple dis­play of crops to fo­cus heav­i­ly on tech­nol­o­gy and re­silience. This in­cludes:

Cli­mate-smart agri­cul­ture: Sem­i­nars and live demon­stra­tions fo­cus on tech­niques like hy­dro­pon­ics and aquapon­ics, which re­duce wa­ter con­sump­tion and al­low for high­er yields in lim­it­ed spaces. The es­tab­lish­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s first fresh berry farm in To­ba­go, a com­mer­cial­ly scaled cli­mate-smart hy­dro­pon­ic green­house, is a tes­ta­ment to this in­vest­ment in mod­ern food pro­duc­tion sys­tems.

In­fra­struc­ture and train­ing: The THA has been vis­i­bly in­vest­ing in the sec­tor, in­clud­ing the pur­chase of new heavy ma­chin­ery—such as trac­tors and im­ple­ments—to re­duce the wait­ing time for crit­i­cal land prepa­ra­tion ser­vices for lo­cal farm­ers. Com­pre­hen­sive train­ing pro­grammes for farm­ers, home gar­den­ers, and agri-proces­sors have been on­go­ing, en­sur­ing that the next gen­er­a­tion of food he­roes is equipped with ad­vanced skills.

Wa­ter man­age­ment: The theme of wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty has been par­tic­u­lar­ly promi­nent, es­pe­cial­ly in light of the is­land’s re­cur­rent chal­lenges. Events have high­light­ed that wa­ter is not just a com­mod­i­ty but is fun­da­men­tal to food pro­duc­tion, push­ing the con­ver­sa­tion be­yond sim­ple farm­ing to in­te­grat­ed en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment.

The strate­gic de­ci­sion to host these events as a pub­lic fes­ti­val is a cru­cial part of the process, shift­ing pub­lic per­cep­tion of agri­cul­ture from a sub­sis­tence ac­tiv­i­ty to a so­phis­ti­cat­ed, prof­itable agribusi­ness.

While the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to work to­wards the Cari­com tar­get of re­duc­ing the re­gion­al food im­port bill by 25% by the end of 2025, the WFD cel­e­bra­tions serve as a pow­er­ful re­minder that food se­cu­ri­ty be­gins at the kitchen counter.

The Unit­ed Na­tions En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­gramme (UN­EP) has es­ti­mat­ed that house­holds in Trinidad and To­ba­go alone dump a stag­ger­ing 103,127 tonnes of food each year. We, the con­sumers, are con­tribut­ing to a glob­al waste prob­lem that un­der­mines the ef­forts of every lo­cal farmer. Tack­ling food se­cu­ri­ty, there­fore, re­quires a dual ap­proach: in­creas­ing lo­cal pro­duc­tion while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ad­dress­ing con­sump­tion habits and re­duc­ing post-har­vest loss­es.

When you at­tend the Grand Ex­hi­bi­tion and buy that bunch of chadon beni or a bag of fresh­ly har­vest­ed cas­sa­va, you are not sim­ply mak­ing a pur­chase; you are cast­ing a vote for a more re­silient, self-sus­tain­ing To­ba­go.

World Food Day is not a pas­sive hol­i­day; it is an an­nu­al call to ac­tion that starts at the grass­roots lev­el. It is a mo­ment for To­ba­go to proud­ly dis­play its har­vest, re­flect on its vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, and re­new its com­mit­ment to feed­ing it­self. For all of us—the pol­i­cy­mak­ers, the farm­ers, and the con­sumer—it is a re­minder that the path to a bet­ter fu­ture is one we must walk, hand in hand, from the soil to the plate.

Jew­el Greene-George is the pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Writ­ers Guild (for­mer­ly To­ba­go Writ­ers Guild). For more in­for­ma­tion you can call or What­sapp 1(868)620-5799, email Trinidad­To­bagoWrit­ers­Guild@gmail.com and find the Guild on Face­book and In­sta­gram @TTWrit­ers­Guild