RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Pota­to prices have sky­rock­et­ed to un­prece­dent­ed lev­els over the past two months and while a slight dip in prices has been ob­served this week, calls are now be­ing made for the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture to step in and pro­mote the cul­ti­va­tion of lo­cal­ly grown pota­toes.

Lead­ing agron­o­mist, Akanath Singh told Guardian Me­dia that T&T can pro­duce its own pota­toes as some of his stu­dents have al­ready start­ed cul­ti­vat­ing them.

Say­ing prices have near­ly dou­bled since Ju­ly, Singh said the steep prices are now dri­ving some con­sumers to seek out al­ter­na­tives like bread­fruit and ed­does.

"This alarm­ing es­ca­la­tion in pota­to prices has not on­ly strained house­hold bud­gets but has al­so brought in­to sharp fo­cus the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the na­tion's food sup­ply chain," Singh said.

He added, 'I do be­lieve we can grow Pota­toes suc­cess­ful­ly on a larg­er scale, once the prop­er grow­ing con­di­tions are met, such as soil type, pH etc. We al­so do have a range of prod­ucts such as fer­til­iz­ers and or­gan­ic bio-stim­u­lants avail­able right here that will bring ex­cel­lent growth and yields with pota­to pro­duc­tion."

At the San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral Mar­ket in San Fer­nan­do whole­sale ven­dor Visham Ma­habir said last year a 50-pound bag of pota­toes sold be­tween $60 to $80.

"Now it has gone up to $200 to $250. It is the first time we are see­ing these record-high prices," he said.

Re­tail ven­dor Rad­i­ca Ar­joon­s­ingh said she pur­chased pota­toes for $200 per bag.

"That bag has 50 pounds and I am re­tail­ing it for three pounds for $20. We have no con­trol over the pota­to prices. That is "Right now it's $200 a bag of 50 pounds. When you take out the bad ones, you lose more. Right now, I am re­tail­ing pota­toes at three pounds for $20," Ar­joon­s­ingh said.

Dex­ter George of Em­bac­cadere, San Fer­nan­do said he was ap­palled that pota­toes were $7 per pound.

"This is re­al­ly ridicu­lous. They say­ing bad weath­er. Pota­to raise, car­rots went up. It's go­ing on like this for the past few months. I think we can grow our own pota­toes for home use. It grows on the stall, it gets roots with­out soil so if we pre­pare a place, I am sure we can bring the Eng­lish pota­toes in Trinidad," George said.

An­oth­er ven­dor Anil Boodram said the prices have start­ed to drop.

"This morn­ing I am sell­ing $4 per pound. Be­fore the price was $225 per bag (50 pounds) It stayed high for more than a month be­cause the ship­ment of pota­toes didn't come yet," he said.

Asked why the prices have soared, Boodram ex­plained: "There is a cer­tain de­mand for pota­toes in this coun­try and be­cause of the de­mand the prices go up."

Mean­while in Biche gar­den­er Judy Nar­ine-Per­sad of Biche said she has start­ed grow­ing her own Irish pota­toes.

"I was able to reap with­in three to four months. When the plant dries then you know it's ready to har­vest," she said. Nar­ine-Per­sad said the pota­toes had start­ed to grow in her fridge and she cul­ti­vat­ed them in loose soil. I plant­ed and reaped twice so I know we can grow pota­toes on a large scale," Nar­ine-Per­sad said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein said the Min­istry has been eval­u­at­ing a range of pota­to va­ri­eties over the last five years to eval­u­ate suit­abil­i­ty for pro­duc­tion un­der lo­cal en­vi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions.

"Re­cent­ly a num­ber of heat tol­er­ant and dis­ease re­sis­tant pota­to va­ri­eties have been iden­ti­fied from plant breed­ers in Ger­many," he said.

Ho­sein said the Min­istry in col­lab­o­ra­tion with our re­gion­al part­ner, the In­ter Amer­i­can In­sti­tute for Co­op­er­a­tion in Agri­cul­ture (IICA) have been part­ner­ing to have these va­ri­eties im­port­ed for eval­u­a­tion to de­ter­mine their suit­abil­i­ty for com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion un­der lo­cal con­di­tions.