Hun­dreds of cer­ti­fied, high-yield­ing dis­ease re­sis­tant rice seeds from Guyana were dis­trib­uted to farm­ers by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries (MALF) yes­ter­day. The dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny took place at the Cen­tral Ex­per­i­ment Sta­tion, Ca­roni North Bank Road, Cen­teno.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry, this event marked a key mile­stone in Phase I of the Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion and Mod­erni­sa­tion of the Rice In­dus­try in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The re­lease said, "Un­der this ini­tia­tive, the Min­istry suc­cess­ful­ly pro­cured 100 tonnes of high-qual­i­ty rice seed from Guyana for the 2025 rice grow­ing sea­son. The seeds are ex­pect­ed to sup­port the com­mer­cial plant­i­ng of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,000 acres of land across Trinidad and To­ba­go. This strate­gic in­ter­ven­tion is part of the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to re­duc­ing the na­tion­al food im­port bill, im­prov­ing lo­cal agri­cul­tur­al re­silience and in­creas­ing rice self-suf­fi­cien­cy."

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram, said at the event, “This Min­istry is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing your pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, your prof­itabil­i­ty and your peace of mind. More acreage. High­er yields. Bet­ter mar­gins. Stronger com­mu­ni­ties. And yes, greater na­tion­al food se­cu­ri­ty. We must reach a point where lo­cal rice is not the ex­cep­tion on the shelf—it is the stan­dard on the plate.”

Rati­ram cred­it­ed strong re­gion­al part­ner­ships, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the Guyanese gov­ern­ment and the Guyana Rice De­vel­op­ment Board (GRDB), for mak­ing the ini­tia­tive pos­si­ble.

He al­so ac­knowl­edged the sup­port of Na­tion­al Flour Mills (NFM) in help­ing to cre­ate a more sta­ble and at­trac­tive mar­ket en­vi­ron­ment for lo­cal rice farm­ers.

Nigel Grimes, project co­or­di­na­tor at MALF, said rice is a vi­tal sta­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go and an in­te­gral part of na­tion­al food se­cu­ri­ty. He ex­pressed, “This seed dis­tri­b­u­tion marks an­oth­er im­por­tant step. With im­proved seed qual­i­ty, in­creased acreage and strong sup­port sys­tems, we ex­pect clear gains in yield and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.”

The Min­istry said it was com­mit­ted to build­ing a self-re­liant, da­ta-dri­ven and com­pet­i­tive rice in­dus­try. Through mul­ti-sec­toral col­lab­o­ra­tion, in­fra­struc­ture sup­port and farmer en­gage­ment, this ini­tia­tive is ex­pect­ed to re­vi­tal­ize an in­dus­try that was once cen­tral to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s agri­cul­tur­al econ­o­my.