Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert says the agri­cul­ture sec­tor has been al­lo­cat­ed an ad­di­tion­al $400 mil­lion to stem its de­cline over the last five years.

Farm­ers are set to get $250 mil­lion in in­cen­tives and $150 mil­lion will be spent on in­fra­struc­ture in a bid to shore up food se­cu­ri­ty.

“The tasks ahead are clear and our at­ten­tion to food se­cu­ri­ty will not be di­vert­ed. We need to fun­da­men­tal­ly change our per­cep­tion and prac­tice of agri­cul­ture. In this con­text, in ad­di­tion to the reg­u­lar bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion of the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, I have al­lo­cat­ed a fur­ther $400 mil­lion in 2024, com­prised of $250 mil­lion in in­cen­tives to farm­ers and $150 mil­lion for the de­vel­op­ment of in­fra­struc­ture through the Pa­lo Seco Agri­cul­tur­al En­ter­pris­es Com­pa­ny,” Im­bert said yes­ter­day as he de­liv­ered Bud­get 2024.

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture was al­lo­cat­ed $ 1.442 bil­lion for fis­cal 2024, com­pared to 1.3 bil­lion in 2023.

In the Bud­get, Im­bert had said the agri­cul­ture sec­tor was now tax-free, yet, ON Mon­day, he lament­ed that it has not at­tract­ed more younger peo­ple to the busi­ness.

At the same time, food im­ports, which was over $5 bil­lion in the pe­ri­od 2019-2021, hit $7.3 bil­lion in 2022.

He said, “Food se­cu­ri­ty is high on our agen­da, and we are re­dou­bling our ef­forts to change the dy­nam­ics of the sec­tor. Mak­ing the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor tax-free is an es­sen­tial com­po­nent of our pol­i­cy frame­work. This ob­jec­tive is tar­get­ed for com­ple­tion in 2024 through leg­isla­tive change, with all re­main­ing am­bi­gu­i­ties, omis­sions and loop­holes in the law lead­ing to dif­fer­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tions of what as­pect of agri­cul­ture is tax-free and what is not clar­i­fied and re­solved. We al­so in­tend to re­view, up­date and im­prove, where nec­es­sary, all con­ces­sions, in­cen­tives and re­bates in the sec­tor, such as the fu­el re­bate for fish­er­men, to make them more re­al­is­tic and rel­e­vant.”

He added, “Madam Speak­er, we recog­nise the need for in­no­v­a­tive and cre­ative so­lu­tions to re­vi­talise the sec­tor. In re­sponse to the age­ing farmer pop­u­la­tion, we seek to at­tract young peo­ple.”

To this end, he said the Gov­ern­ment was un­der­pin­ning food pro­duc­tion with an ef­fi­cient and ef­fec­tive land tenure ad­min­is­tra­tion sys­tem.

“We are de­liv­er­ing in a time­ly man­ner, the grant­i­ng and re­new­al of leas­es for state land to farm­ers, al­low­ing them to ac­cess fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, fis­cal in­cen­tives, mech­a­nised agri­cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties, and en­try in­to sec­ondary pro­duc­tion through val­ue-added and cot­tage in­dus­tries,” he said.

To ex­pand agri­cul­ture pro­duc­tion, he said the Gov­ern­ment was al­so de­vel­op­ing and pro­vid­ing fa­cil­i­ties at the St Au­gus­tine Nurs­eries, at Marp­er Farm and at La Re­union, aimed at height­en­ing pub­lic aware­ness of crop con­ser­va­tion and bio­di­ver­si­ty and at pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for ed­u­ca­tion and out­reach pro­grammes; re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing 240 km of ac­cess roads; up­grad­ing fish land­ing sites and whole­sale fish mar­kets to ex­pand en­tre­pre­neur­ial op­por­tu­ni­ties and fa­cil­i­tate train­ing in pro­cess­ing ini­tia­tives, in par­tic­u­lar, for ves­sel own­ers and op­er­a­tors, fish­er­folk, ven­dors, down­stream in­dus­tries and the wider com­mu­ni­ty; re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing and re­plant­i­ng 900 acres of co­conut to boost the co­conut in­dus­try and is aim­ing to we are re­vi­talise the co­coa in­dus­try.

Im­bert said to ef­fect this fun­da­men­tal change in agri­cul­ture, he in­tends to forge a col­lab­o­ra­tive en­gage­ment among all min­istries and in­sti­tu­tions in­volved in agri­cul­ture in T&T.