As Trinidad and To­ba­go com­mem­o­rates World Food Day on Oc­to­ber 16, three UN agen­cies–FAO Trinidad and To­ba­go, GEF SGP Trinidad and To­ba­go and WFP Caribbean–have col­lab­o­rat­ed to ex­plore the ways a re­vival of house­hold and com­mu­ni­ty agri­cul­ture is shap­ing a more cli­mate-re­silient fu­ture.

At San Fer­nan­do Girls’ Gov­ern­ment School, a small hy­dro­pon­ic sys­tem has be­come a lab­o­ra­to­ry for the fu­ture. Eleven-year-old An­na-Maria Hen­ry leans over rows of pak choi and let­tuce, care­ful­ly check­ing the nu­tri­ent so­lu­tion. As part of the 4-H Green Thumbs Club, sup­port­ed by the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion (FAO), An­na-Maria and her class­mates have trans­formed a cor­ner of the school com­pound in­to a thriv­ing gar­den with­out soil.

“We are the fu­ture,” she says with con­vic­tion. “And our food is the fu­ture.”

Her school club does more than grow veg­eta­bles. Stu­dents mea­sure pH lev­els, track ex­pens­es, and rein­vest pro­ceeds from sand­wich sales in­to seedlings. For An­na-Maria, learn­ing to grow food is par­tic­u­lar­ly ap­peal­ing be­cause it is tech­no­log­i­cal­ly dri­ven and cli­mate-smart. “It is bet­ter than plant­i­ng in the ground be­cause the amount of ma­te­ri­als and pol­lu­tion that might be in the ground … you can put your seedlings in your hy­dro­pon­ic sys­tem and con­trol the en­vi­ron­ment that your plants are in,” she ex­plains.

For many old­er Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, these school projects re­vive mem­o­ries of a by­gone era. Not long ago, most homes had a “kitchen gar­den” in the back­yard, sup­ply­ing bo­di, ground pro­vi­sions, sea­son­ing and dasheen bush for fam­i­ly meals. Su­per­mar­kets and im­port­ed sta­ples grad­u­al­ly re­placed those habits, but the in­stinct to grow food nev­er tru­ly dis­ap­peared.

That in­stinct has prompt­ed res­i­dents of Cashew Gar­dens to take charge of what they eat. With sup­port from the Glob­al En­vi­ron­ment Fa­cil­i­ty Small Grants Pro­gramme (GEF SGP), they built a com­mu­ni­ty green­house pow­ered by so­lar and wind, sup­port­ed by rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing, com­post­ing and hy­dro­pon­ics. Fam­i­lies eat fresh­er food, sales gen­er­ate in­come, and or­gan­ic waste cy­cles back in­to the en­vi­ron­ment as fer­tilis­er. It is a com­mu­ni­ty-led cir­cu­lar econ­o­my in ac­tion—proof that re­silience to in­fla­tion and sup­ply shocks can start at the grass­roots. Dur­ing COVID-19, sim­i­lar gar­dens in Ari­ma, Sea Lots and Gon­za­les al­so helped house­holds se­cure food, un­der­scor­ing the val­ue of home gar­den­ing in times of cri­sis.

The ur­gency of such ef­forts is clear. In fis­cal 2023, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s food im­port bill reached $7.2 bil­lion. For a coun­try of just 1.4 mil­lion peo­ple, that is a heavy bur­den—drain­ing for­eign ex­change and

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leav­ing house­holds vul­ner­a­ble to glob­al price shocks. And be­cause T&T is a Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing State (SIDS), the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties mul­ti­ply: lim­it­ed arable land, ex­po­sure to hur­ri­canes and flood­ing, de­pen­dence on ex­ter­nal mar­kets, and an econ­o­my tied close­ly to en­er­gy ex­ports. At the re­gion­al lev­el, Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean are close to achiev­ing pro­duc­tive and sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture, and SIDS have shown slight im­prove­ment—but the gap re­mains.

Cli­mate change com­pounds the pres­sure. Ris­ing tem­per­a­tures stress crops and live­stock; er­rat­ic rain­fall swings be­tween drought and flood; stronger storms dis­rupt trans­port and mar­kets. New pests and dis­eases take root in shift­ing con­di­tions. For a SIDS al­ready stretched by its ge­og­ra­phy and econ­o­my, these shocks are not dis­tant threats—they are present re­al­i­ties. Near­ly 70 per cent of land used by small­hold­er farm­ers in Trinidad is cov­ered with heavy clay soils, vul­ner­a­ble to both drought and flood­ing, while an es­ti­mat­ed 30–40 per cent of agri­cul­tur­al land na­tion­wide suf­fers from soil degra­da­tion, threat­en­ing food se­cu­ri­ty and car­bon re­ten­tion.

Com­mu­ni­ties are re­spond­ing by draw­ing on cul­tur­al mem­o­ry and her­itage crops to adapt, in­no­vate and re­build re­silience. The World Food Pro­gramme’s Re­turn­ing to Our Roots cam­paign high­lights tra­di­tion­al root crops like dasheen, cas­sa­va and sweet pota­to—foods cen­tral to Caribbean iden­ti­ty that are hardy, low-in­put sta­ples able to with­stand shocks.

In rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, that re­vival is per­son­al. In Bras­so Seco, Carl Fitz­james, co-founder of the Al­liance of Rur­al Com­mu­ni­ties re­calls grow­ing up sur­round­ed by gar­dens and an­chor­ing meals in hearty ground pro­vi­sions. To­day he con­tin­ues plant­i­ng and urges oth­ers to do the same:

“If you’re liv­ing in an apart­ment, you can still put a few veg­eta­bles in a box and they will grow. You don’t need an acre—even in high-ris­es peo­ple are plant­i­ng food. The key is to mul­ti-crop, mix­ing corn, ba­nanas and peas so you al­ways have some­thing to reap. Com­post­ing peel­ings and scraps cre­ates the rich soil your plants need with­out ex­pen­sive in­puts.”

But com­mu­ni­ty-led ac­tion alone is not enough; in­sti­tu­tion­al sup­port is es­sen­tial. That is why na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions are be­ing equipped to scale up cli­mate-smart agri­cul­ture. Un­der the Gov­ern­ment’s Coun­try Pro­gram­ming Frame­work (2023–2026) with FAO, there is a com­mit­ment to strength­en agri­food sys­tems through cli­mate-smart prac­tices, sus­tain­able land use and sup­port for small-scale farm­ers, youth and women. Ef­forts in­clude pro­mot­ing com­mu­ni­ty and ur­ban agri­cul­ture, train­ing farm­ers and schools in agroe­co­log­i­cal prac­tices, and es­tab­lish­ing mod­el farms.

Scal­ing up re­quires the right scaf­fold­ing. The Na­tion­al Adap­ta­tion Plan iden­ti­fies agri­cul­ture and food se­cu­ri­ty as a pri­or­i­ty for re­silience. The Na­tion­al Cli­mate Change Pol­i­cy calls for main­stream­ing adap­ta­tion across all sec­tors. Mean­while, the Agro-In­cen­tive Pro­gramme of­fers grants to farm­ers and groups in­vest­ing in shade hous­es, ef­fi­cient ir­ri­ga­tion, and mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy—the very tools com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens need.

A cul­tur­al shift is al­so un­der­way in how young peo­ple are en­gaged. By spark­ing in­ter­est in food preser­va­tion and sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture from an ear­ly age, UN agen­cies, gov­ern­ment, civ­il so­ci­ety and the pri­vate sec­tor are in­spir­ing a new gen­er­a­tion of agri­cul­tur­al en­tre­pre­neurs. The ben­e­fits are long term: as An­na-Maria’s jour­ney shows, when youth gain skills in agri­cul­ture, “they car­ry them in­to adult­hood, weav­ing food se­cu­ri­ty in­to the fab­ric of so­ci­ety”.

What re­mains is to en­sure re­sources reach schools and com­mu­ni­ties con­sis­tent­ly. Imag­ine every pri­ma­ry school with a hy­dro­pon­ic sys­tem, every sec­ondary school paired with a com­mu­ni­ty plot, and every neigh­bour­hood able to ac­cess small grants for cli­mate-smart farm­ing. Stu­dents would not just learn about agri­cul­ture; they would car­ry skills in­to adult­hood, weav­ing food se­cu­ri­ty in­to the fab­ric of so­ci­ety.

As An­na-Maria puts it: “We need to learn how to grow our own food be­cause the prices are go­ing up. And plant­i­ng makes you health­i­er, too. You get vi­t­a­mins, pro­tein, starch—and it makes you strong.”

Agri­cul­ture is about more than food. It is about con­fi­dence—know­ing we can feed our­selves even in times of dis­rup­tion. It is about con­nec­tion—ty­ing us back to back­yard tra­di­tions and for­ward to in­no­va­tions like hy­dro­pon­ics. And it is about con­ti­nu­ity—pass­ing knowl­edge be­tween gen­er­a­tions to meet new chal­lenges.

With the pas­sion of young peo­ple like An­na-Maria, the grass­roots wis­dom of lead­ers like Carl Fitz­james, the her­itage of root crops cel­e­brat­ed by WFP, and sup­port­ive poli­cies and pro­grammes, Trinidad and To­ba­go can face the fu­ture not with fear but with the as­sur­ance that its peo­ple are ready to grow through change.