Shas­tri Boodan

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram said the gov­ern­ment is ex­plor­ing ways to sup­port the hor­ti­cul­ture in­dus­try.

He spoke about the po­ten­tial for growth in the sec­tor when he at­tend­ed the launch of the T&T Or­chid So­ci­ety’s two-day or­chid show and sale at Preysal High School in Cou­va yes­ter­day.

“There is great ex­port po­ten­tial, but it re­quires in­vest­ment in­to the sec­tor,” he said, not­ing that most of the plants avail­able at the show were im­port­ed.

Rati­ram al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the lack of prop­er fa­cil­i­ties for lo­cal grow­ers to scale up pro­duc­tion and ac­cess in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

Ja­son Achong, a ven­dor at the event, high­light­ed the need for ad­vanced in­fra­struc­ture to sup­port the lo­cal in­dus­try.

Achong, who works over­seas, us­es his for­eign earn­ings to im­port plants for lo­cal sale. He be­lieves T&T has the ge­net­ic po­ten­tial to pro­duce world-class or­chids but said there is a need for a prop­a­ga­tion lab­o­ra­to­ry—an ini­tia­tive that might re­quire up to $1 mil­lion in in­vest­ment.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture Sad­dam Ho­sein said he plans to meet with the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands to deal with the prob­lem of land grab­bing.

“That is a mat­ter by law where the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands has ju­ris­dic­tion,” he said. “I don’t want to pre-empt an an­swer right now with­out all of the facts be­cause that is a se­ri­ous is­sue.”

Ho­sein said there have been sev­er­al com­plaints about in­di­vid­u­als il­le­gal­ly oc­cu­py­ing state lands. He as­sured that there is a le­gal process to re­solve those is­sues.