Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

The Na­tion­al 4-H Coun­cil of Trinidad and To­ba­go is pro­mot­ing root crop pro­duc­tion in schools as part of ef­forts to help re­duce the na­tion’s heavy food im­port bill.

Natasha Lee, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil, said teach­ers who vol­un­teer as 4-H lead­ers re­cent­ly ben­e­fit­ed from a two-day train­ing course in root and tu­ber pro­duc­tion host­ed by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture. She spoke with Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of one of the ses­sions in Princes Town.

Lee said the aim is to en­cour­age more young peo­ple to be­gin agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion at home, which she be­lieves will al­so strength­en fam­i­ly in­volve­ment.

“We see root crops as a very ver­sa­tile prod­uct that can be used in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent ways,” she said.

She added that it was es­sen­tial for teach­ers to be prop­er­ly trained through the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture.

“Root crop pro­duc­tion lends it­self to what we are striv­ing for, which is sus­tain­able agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices.”

Ac­cord­ing to Lee, many schools have not pre­vi­ous­ly en­gaged in root crop cul­ti­va­tion or tak­en part in any of 4-H’s com­pe­ti­tions in­volv­ing root crops.

The Coun­cil will there­fore fo­cus on en­cour­ag­ing stu­dents to grow food at home, in­clud­ing through con­tain­er gar­den­ing.

She added that 4-H will launch its gar­den com­pe­ti­tion in Jan­u­ary, with teach­ers to be recog­nised for their vol­un­tary ser­vice.

The com­pe­ti­tion will al­so in­clude con­tain­er gar­den­ing at stu­dents’ homes and agro-pro­cess­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

While the or­gan­i­sa­tion has been able to se­cure some fund­ing, Lee not­ed that ad­di­tion­al sup­port is need­ed as more schools come on board and the im­por­tance of sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture con­tin­ues to grow.

She said the Coun­cil is re­ceiv­ing sup­port from na­tion­al awardee Ramdeo Boon­doo, re­cip­i­ent of the Cha­co­nia Gold Medal for his con­tri­bu­tion to agri­cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Teach­ers were trained in the pro­duc­tion of cas­sa­va, yam, ed­does, sweet pota­to, and oth­er key crops.