Shas­tri Boodan

Trinidad and To­ba­go has re­ceived a do­na­tion of 19,000 kilo­grams of rice and 12,500 litres of ed­i­ble oil from the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia. The sup­plies were for­mal­ly hand­ed over by In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Dr Pradeep Ra­jpuro­hit dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny on Wednes­day at the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture’s head of­fice in Ch­agua­nas.

Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Ravi Rati­ram ac­cept­ed the do­na­tion on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment, say­ing it would be dis­trib­uted to vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies na­tion­wide. He called the ges­ture “a re­flec­tion of the en­dur­ing strength of In­dia’s co­op­er­a­tive in­sti­tu­tions and their will­ing­ness to sup­port glob­al part­ners in a time of need.”

The con­tri­bu­tion was fa­cil­i­tat­ed through the Haryana State Co­op­er­a­tive Sup­ply and Mar­ket­ing Fed­er­a­tion Ltd. (HAFED), with lo­gis­ti­cal and stor­age sup­port pro­vid­ed by NAMDE­V­CO. The ini­tia­tive al­so in­volved the Min­istries of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs, Trade and In­dus­try, and Agri­cul­ture.

Speak­ing at the cer­e­mo­ny, Rati­ram ac­knowl­edged the broad­er glob­al chal­lenges af­fect­ing food sys­tems — in­clud­ing cli­mate change, sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions and eco­nom­ic in­sta­bil­i­ty — and pledged to con­tin­ue pri­ori­tis­ing food se­cu­ri­ty and food safe­ty as cen­tral pil­lars of de­vel­op­ment. “Be­yond those chal­lenges lie the sto­ries of re­al peo­ple — farm­ers plant­i­ng with un­cer­tain­ty, small ven­dors nav­i­gat­ing ris­ing costs, and con­sumers seek­ing as­sur­ance about the food on their plates. These are the peo­ple I’m here to serve,” he said.

High Com­mis­sion­er Ra­jpuro­hit high­light­ed In­dia’s trans­for­ma­tion from a food-im­port­ing coun­try to one of the world’s largest food ex­porters, at­tribut­ing that shift to strate­gic re­forms made in the mid-20th cen­tu­ry.

Re­act­ing to the do­na­tion on Face­book, for­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture Avinash Singh wel­comed the de­vel­op­ment and point­ed to con­ti­nu­ity be­tween past and present ad­min­is­tra­tions. “Hap­py to see some good PNM ini­tia­tives ex­e­cut­ed by the Gov­ern­ment,” he wrote.

Singh ref­er­enced three ini­tia­tives fa­cil­i­tat­ed dur­ing his tenure:

Rice seeds pur­chased from Guyana un­der an MOU;

Agro-pro­cess­ing equip­ment do­nat­ed by the Ba­jaj Group to up­grade the Pi­ar­co Pack­ing House;

The cur­rent do­na­tion of rice and ed­i­ble oils from HAFED and the Haryana State, made through the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion.