RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

With farm­ing in­tern­ships ex­pect­ed to triple from 30 to 100 par­tic­i­pants, of­fer­ing more young peo­ple an op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­ter agri­cul­ture and busi­ness, agri­cul­tur­al con­sul­tant Riyadh Mo­hammed says the coun­try’s abil­i­ty to turn its agri­cul­tur­al in­vest­ment in­to tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits will de­pend on how ef­fec­tive­ly poli­cies are im­ple­ment­ed.

In an analy­sis of the 2026–2027 agri­cul­tur­al bud­get, Mo­hammed, Lead Agri­cul­ture and Busi­ness Con­sul­tant at Trop­i­cal Agri­cul­ture Con­sul­tan­cy Ser­vices, said the ex­pan­sion of the in­tern­ship pro­gramme was en­cour­ag­ing, but young peo­ple need­ed more than ex­po­sure to farm­ing to build sus­tain­able ca­reers in the sec­tor.

He said par­tic­i­pants should re­ceive struc­tured place­ments, prac­ti­cal train­ing and men­tor­ship across agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion, pro­cess­ing, re­search, tech­nol­o­gy and dis­tri­b­u­tion, with clear path­ways in­to em­ploy­ment or busi­ness own­er­ship.

Those seek­ing to es­tab­lish farms would al­so need ac­cess to land, fi­nanc­ing, equip­ment and de­pend­able buy­ers.

Mo­hammed said the bud­get pro­vid­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties to strength­en the food sys­tem, but warned that the suc­cess of the mea­sures would de­pend on whether they im­proved farm­ers’ prof­itabil­i­ty and gave con­sumers de­pend­able ac­cess to safe, nu­tri­tious and rea­son­ably priced food.

He said the pro­posed Farm Busi­ness For­mal­i­sa­tion Pro­gramme could help farm­ers move be­yond sub­sis­tence pro­duc­tion and build com­mer­cial­ly vi­able en­ter­pris­es.

The pro­gramme cov­ers land tenure, busi­ness reg­is­tra­tion, record-keep­ing, fi­nan­cial man­age­ment and ac­cess to fi­nance.

Ac­cord­ing to Mo­hammed, for­mal­i­sa­tion could help farm­ers cal­cu­late pro­duc­tion costs, demon­strate their abil­i­ty to re­pay loans, ne­go­ti­ate sup­ply con­tracts and qual­i­fy for as­sis­tance.

How­ev­er, he warned that the process must not be­come an­oth­er bu­reau­crat­ic ob­sta­cle, par­tic­u­lar­ly for farm­ers wait­ing on gov­ern­ment-is­sued leas­es.

He said clear el­i­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria, pro­cess­ing dead­lines and co­or­di­nat­ed sup­port across min­istries were nec­es­sary to en­sure farm­ers were not dis­ad­van­taged by ad­min­is­tra­tive de­lays be­yond their con­trol.

Mo­hammed al­so high­light­ed the im­por­tance of re­duc­ing pro­duc­tion costs through mea­sures out­lined in the bud­get, in­clud­ing the re­moval of VAT from agri­cul­tur­al ma­chin­ery and spec­i­fied green­house and hy­dro­pon­ic in­puts, ze­ro-rat­ing cul­ti­va­tion and an­i­mal-health ma­te­ri­als, and re­mov­ing cus­toms du­ties on live­stock feed.

He said such con­ces­sions could en­cour­age in­vest­ment, but their im­pact would de­pend on ef­fi­cient ad­min­is­tra­tion, ac­cess to tech­ni­cal ad­vice and whether the sav­ings reached pro­duc­ers.

While the open­ing of the Brechin Cas­tle Agro-Pro­cess­ing Fa­cil­i­ty and the com­mis­sion­ing of a 300-litre milk pas­teuri­sa­tion plant at the Sug­ar Cane Feeds Cen­tre could cre­ate ad­di­tion­al out­lets for lo­cal pro­duce, ex­tend shelf life and sup­port man­u­fac­tur­ing, Mo­hammed said the fa­cil­i­ties would need re­li­able sup­plies of raw ma­te­ri­als, food-safe­ty con­trols, ad­e­quate pack­ag­ing, main­te­nance, work­ing cap­i­tal and ef­fec­tive dis­tri­b­u­tion.

He said their suc­cess should be mea­sured by ac­tu­al pro­duc­tion, sales, util­i­sa­tion and the earn­ings of farm­ers sup­ply­ing them, rather than sim­ply by the com­ple­tion of in­fra­struc­ture projects.

Mo­hammed said sev­er­al long­stand­ing prob­lems con­tin­ued to threat­en agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, in­clud­ing in­se­cure land tenure, idle pro­duc­tive land, un­re­li­able ir­ri­ga­tion, flood­ing, de­te­ri­o­rat­ing farm ac­cess roads, prae­di­al lar­ce­ny, labour short­ages, ex­pen­sive in­puts and for­eign-ex­change con­straints.

He al­so called for stronger sup­port for soil health, qual­i­ty plant­i­ng ma­te­r­i­al, pest man­age­ment, vet­eri­nary ser­vices and live­stock dis­ease pre­ven­tion.

In To­ba­go, he said the pro­posed ex­pan­sion of the Friend­ship Agro Park Mega Farm Pro­gramme should be linked to de­pend­able de­mand from ho­tels, schools, re­tail­ers and oth­er in­sti­tu­tion­al buy­ers.

Mo­hammed rec­om­mend­ed that the Gov­ern­ment de­vel­op a three-year food-sys­tem plan with clear com­mod­i­ty pri­or­i­ties, re­al­is­tic im­port-sub­sti­tu­tion tar­gets, des­ig­nat­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and quar­ter­ly pub­lic re­port­ing.

He said re­solv­ing land-tenure is­sues, im­prov­ing ir­ri­ga­tion and drainage, ex­pand­ing ac­cess to fi­nance and strength­en­ing ex­ten­sion and vet­eri­nary ser­vices should be im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ties.

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries has re­ceived a head­line al­lo­ca­tion of $987 mil­lion for fis­cal 2026–2027, down from $1.130 bil­lion in the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year.

The $143 mil­lion re­duc­tion rep­re­sents ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12.7 per cent.