Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram says more than 30 farm­ers across Trinidad and To­ba­go are be­ing trained in new agri­cul­tur­al meth­ods to with­stand the ef­fects of cli­mate change.

Speak­ing at the of­fi­cial launch of the Re­gion­al Readi­ness Project: Strength­en­ing the Ev­i­den­tial Ba­sis for the Adop­tion of Adap­ta­tion Tech­nolo­gies for Small­hold­er Farm­ers, held at Cara Suites on Tues­day, Rati­ram said the ini­tia­tive is a part­ner­ship be­tween the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, the Min­istry of Plan­ning, the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion (FAO), and the Green Cli­mate Fund.

“This ini­tia­tive rep­re­sents a crit­i­cal step in our na­tion­al re­sponse to cli­mate change and its im­pacts on agri­cul­ture,” the min­is­ter said. “Small­hold­er farm­ers are amongst the most vul­ner­a­ble groups af­fect­ed by cli­mate change. In­creas­ing­ly er­rat­ic weath­er, long dry sea­sons, and more in­tense rain­fall events are putting pres­sure on the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of our food sys­tem and the liveli­hood of those who feed our na­tion.”

Un­der the pro­gramme, farm­ers are be­ing in­tro­duced to new tech­nolo­gies such as pro­tec­tive struc­tures, iso­la­tion tech­niques, and so­lar-pow­ered ir­ri­ga­tion sys­tems. Rati­ram said these will help farm­ers re­duce their ex­po­sure to cli­mate risks while im­prov­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and re­source ef­fi­cien­cy.

“What is par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant about this project is its fo­cus on in­clu­sion, learn­ing and col­lab­o­ra­tion,” he said. “By tar­get­ing train­ing and demon­stra­tion ac­tiv­i­ties to key groups such as rur­al women, youth and in­dige­nous farm­ers, we are mak­ing sure that no one is left be­hind as we tran­si­tion to more cli­mate-re­silient agri­cul­ture.”

He said the project is al­so pi­lot­ing cli­mate-re­silient pro­duc­tion units at eight Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture lo­ca­tions and es­tab­lish­ing a mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion frame­work to guide fu­ture pol­i­cy and in­vest­ment.

“We will be work­ing hand-in-hand with our farm­ers across the coun­try to teach them new tech­nolo­gies that can help mit­i­gate cli­mate change,” he said.

Rati­ram said pri­vate sec­tor en­gage­ment will be key. “For many small farm­ers, the ini­tial cost of tech­nol­o­gy re­mains a ma­jor bar­ri­er. That is why this project’s ef­fort to de­liv­er fi­nan­cial frame­works, ex­plore risk-shar­ing in­stru­ments such as in­sur­ance, and en­gage pri­vate sec­tor stake­hold­ers is so crit­i­cal,” he said.

The min­is­ter thanked the FAO, the Green Cli­mate Fund, and the Min­istry of Plan­ning for their lead­er­ship in spear­head­ing the project. He al­so praised farm­ers and stake­hold­ers for their role in mak­ing the ini­tia­tive a suc­cess.

Al­so at­tend­ing the func­tion were FAO Lead Tech­ni­cal Of­fi­cer Jac­in­to Buen­fil and Kis­han Ku­mars­ingh, Head of the Mul­ti­lat­er­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Agree­ments Unit at the Min­istry of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment.