Shas­tri Boodan

De­vel­oped in Kenya, the Wambugu ap­ple could be the next ma­jor cash crop for Trinidad and To­ba­go—of­fer­ing a promis­ing av­enue to re­duce the na­tion’s im­port bill and boost agri­cul­tur­al ex­ports.

At the fore­front of this ini­tia­tive is 65-year-old Bon­ney Ab­dul, who has in­vest­ed heav­i­ly in cul­ti­vat­ing the fruit at his Ravine Sable es­tate in Long­denville , where he op­er­ates Ap­ple Tree Re­search Cen­tre Caribbean. Ab­dul plans to es­tab­lish a 10-acre or­chard ded­i­cat­ed to the trop­i­cal ap­ple, a project he be­lieves could rev­o­lu­tionise lo­cal agri­cul­ture and em­pow­er small farm­ers.

Ab­dul, who has spent the past 20 years trav­el­ling across Asia and Africa fol­low­ing his re­tire­ment, first en­coun­tered the Wambugu ap­ple in pro­duc­tion abroad. Im­pressed by its re­silience and prof­itabil­i­ty, he de­cid­ed to in­tro­duce it to the Caribbean.

“This is not a plant you can grow from a seed; it comes as a graft with a root­stock,” Ab­dul ex­plained. “It took us three years to se­cure the im­port per­mit be­cause it’s a gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment project. The plants fi­nal­ly ar­rived last De­cem­ber.”

Since then, Ab­dul and his team have plant­ed 1,000 trees on one acre, with plans to ex­pand by one acre every six months. The project cur­rent­ly em­ploys six full-time work­ers.

Each Wambugu ap­ple tree be­gins bear­ing fruit with­in 18 months, pro­duc­ing up to 500 ap­ples an­nu­al­ly. Un­like tra­di­tion­al ap­ple va­ri­eties, its yield is non-sea­son­al, al­low­ing for year-round pro­duc­tion. Ac­cord­ing to Ab­dul, a sin­gle well-man­aged acre can pro­duce as many as 500,000 ap­ples an­nu­al­ly.

He be­lieves the crop is par­tic­u­lar­ly suit­ed for re­tirees with idle land, as the in­vest­ment can last a cen­tu­ry and gen­er­ate sus­tain­able, gen­er­a­tional wealth.

“Re­cent­ly, a for­mer Min­is­ter of Fi­nance stat­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go im­ports about $50 mil­lion worth of ap­ples an­nu­al­ly. Imag­ine if we could slash that im­port bill,” Ab­dul said. “Be­cause of cli­mate change, many tem­per­ate coun­tries are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing failed ap­ple har­vests. The Wambugu ap­ple thrives in hot weath­er and can fill that pro­duc­tion gap. It’s made many peo­ple in Kenya and else­where in­to mil­lion­aires.”

To safe­guard his ear­ly ef­forts, Ab­dul fenced his prop­er­ty to keep out stray an­i­mals and thieves. How­ev­er, he said pro­duc­tion could ex­pand sig­nif­i­cant­ly if the es­tate were con­nect­ed to elec­tric­i­ty from T&TEC , wa­ter from WASA and if agri­cul­tur­al ac­cess roads in the area were prop­er­ly re­paired and sur­faced.

Ab­dul is al­so open to sell­ing a lim­it­ed num­ber of plants to oth­ers in­ter­est­ed in cul­ti­vat­ing the crop. His re­search cen­tre is cur­rent­ly work­ing to pro­duce its own root­stock to sup­ply re­gion­al pro­duc­ers, fur­ther ex­pand­ing the ap­ple’s reach across the Caribbean.

The Wambugu ap­ple, de­vel­oped in Kenya, is prized for its abil­i­ty to thrive in warm, trop­i­cal cli­mates where tra­di­tion­al ap­ples strug­gle. It is crisp, sweet, juicy, with the end tangy . It is avail­able in red and green and it ma­tures ear­ly with qual­i­ties that make it both mar­ketable and adapt­able to Caribbean con­di­tions.

For more in­for­ma­tion, Mr. Bon­ney Ab­dul ofAP­PLE RE­SEARCH CEN­TER CARIBBEAN. can be con­tact­ed at 716-8686