Farm­ers across the coun­try can now ac­cess di­ag­nos­tic ser­vices from the Agro-En­vi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices (AES) at the UWI’s Fac­ul­ty of Food and Agri­cul­ture (FFA), to de­ter­mine the best reme­dies for any is­sues af­fect­ing their crops and soil health.

A re­lease from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus re­ports that the ini­tia­tive, cre­at­ed by the Fac­ul­ty’s De­part­ment of Food Pro­duc­tion, to ad­dress the need to en­sure safe and high-qual­i­ty food is avail­able for pub­lic con­sump­tion.

“The Agro-En­vi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices (AES) was es­tab­lished to pro­vide es­sen­tial sup­port to farm­ers and oth­er rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers, such as agro­chem­i­cal com­pa­nies, in the realms of Plant Health Ser­vices,” the FFA re­lease said.

On Ju­ly 23, 2024, AES de­liv­ered di­ag­nos­tic ser­vices di­rect­ly to farm­ers in the Or­ange Grove area. The ser­vices were of­fered free of charge, and saw the FFA team vis­it­ing farm sites and en­gag­ing with farm­ers on lo­ca­tion to di­ag­nose is­sues re­lat­ed to plant and soil health and pro­vid­ing guid­ance on ap­pro­pri­ate reme­dies.  Ser­vices in­clud­ed soil health as­sess­ments, such as pH and elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty (EC) mea­sure­ments, and pest and dis­ease prob­lem di­ag­no­sis.

A member of the Faculty of Food and Agriculture (FFA) shares a bottle of the UWIMade (Biophyte 1.0), a bio-friendly pesticide that’s an ideal remedy to achieve optimal soil health and plant protection, with a local farmer in the Orange Grove Area, during Mobile Agro Environmental Services (AES) Exercise. [Image courtesy The UWI]

“Plant health ser­vices are vi­tal for sus­tain­ing agri­cul­tur­al sys­tems' vi­tal­i­ty, en­sur­ing the qual­i­ty and abun­dance of food sup­plies nec­es­sary to sup­port the grow­ing lo­cal and glob­al pop­u­la­tion,” the re­lease from The UWI stat­ed. “AES of­fers a com­pre­hen­sive range of sci­en­tif­ic analy­ses and di­ag­nos­tics, in­clud­ing pest and dis­ease di­ag­no­sis, soil and wa­ter analy­sis, an­i­mal feed analy­sis, and food analy­sis. Each com­po­nent is crit­i­cal and in­ter­con­nect­ed with­in broad­er agri­cul­tur­al and eco­log­i­cal sys­tems.”

The FFA says of­fer­ing these in­te­grat­ed ser­vices from the AES “is not mere­ly to re­act to is­sues as they arise but to proac­tive­ly sup­port our stake­hold­ers through qual­i­ty ser­vice.”

“Pest and dis­ease di­ag­no­sis play a cru­cial role in pro­tect­ing crops from pathogens and pests that can cause sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to plant health and yield. By iden­ti­fy­ing these threats ear­ly, ef­fec­tive man­age­ment strate­gies can be im­ple­ment­ed to mit­i­gate im­pacts,” the FFA re­lease ex­plained.

Augustus Thomas assesses the condition of a plant's health and the soil's conditions, during the Mobile Agro Environmental Services (AES) Exercise. [Image courtesy The UWI]

“Sim­i­lar­ly, soil and wa­ter analy­ses pro­vide es­sen­tial da­ta on the nu­tri­tion­al and chem­i­cal sta­tus of the en­vi­ron­ments where plants grow,” the FFA point­ed out. “This in­for­ma­tion is fun­da­men­tal for op­ti­miz­ing crop health and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, en­sur­ing that en­vi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions sup­port op­ti­mal plant growth.”

It not­ed: “An­i­mal feed analy­sis en­sures that live­stock re­ceive bal­anced nu­tri­tion, which is es­sen­tial for their health and the qual­i­ty of an­i­mal-de­rived food prod­ucts. Mean­while, food analy­sis as­sess­es the safe­ty and qual­i­ty of food prod­ucts, safe­guard­ing pub­lic health and main­tain­ing con­sumer trust in agri­cul­tur­al out­puts.”

The FFA re­stat­ed its com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing farm­ers by con­tin­u­ing the AES mo­bile ser­vice, un­der­scor­ing the re­al­i­ty that farm­ers play a cru­cial role in en­sur­ing food avail­abil­i­ty, as well as food se­cu­ri­ty.  As such, it in­tends to vis­it a dif­fer­ent farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty each year.

Augustus Thomas (right) presents UWIMade Biophyte 1.0, a biological alternative to hazardous pesticides, to a local farmer in the Orange Grove Area, during the Mobile Agro Environmental Services (AES) Initiative produced by The UWI's Faculty of Food and Agriculture (FFA). [Image courtesy The UWI]

“This proac­tive ap­proach aims to en­hance the re­silience of food sys­tems, im­prove the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices, and boost the avail­abil­i­ty and qual­i­ty of food and agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts,” the FFA said. “By sup­port­ing in­di­vid­ual farm­ers and agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­ers, AES pro­motes food se­cu­ri­ty and en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty for the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty.” —ST. AU­GUS­TINE, Trinidad and To­ba­go (UWI)

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The Fac­ul­ty of Food and Agri­cul­ture (FFA) will be at the TT Agri-Ex­po 2024 in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah from Fri­day 16 to Sun­day 18 Au­gust 2024, with the main ob­jec­tive to fos­ter part­ner­ships with key stake­hold­ers. Farm­ers, proces­sors, dis­trib­u­tors, re­tail­ers, and con­sumers are in­vit­ed to vis­it the booth where in­sights will be shared on en­hanc­ing the ef­fi­cien­cy and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the lo­cal food sup­ply chain. Check out booth num­bers E 25 to E28 to meet with the FFA ex­perts.

For more in­for­ma­tion about ser­vices of­fered by AES, con­tact Au­gus­tus Thomas, Plant Pathol­o­gist at 662-2002 ext. 82090 or via What­sApp at 868-389-4237 (868-389-4AES). Al­ter­na­tive­ly, in­quiries can be di­rect­ed via email at STA-AES.DFP@sta.uwi.edu.