To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly of­fi­cials are un­der­scor­ing the im­por­tance of To­ba­go grow­ing its own food, giv­en the im­pact the out of ser­vice car­go ves­sel had had on sup­plies on the is­land. They have al­so stressed how cru­cial a sta­ble wa­ter sup­ply is to food pro­duc­tion.

The com­ments came at the launch of the World Food Day cel­e­bra­tions last week Thurs­day in Scar­bor­ough.

The 2023 World Food Day Cel­e­bra­tions in To­ba­go will be held on Oc­to­ber 18 and 19 at the Scar­bor­ough Food Hub, in Shaw Park. This year’s theme would be, “Wa­ter is Life, Wa­ter is Food. No One is Left Be­hind.”

The two-day ac­tiv­i­ties are ex­pect­ed to show­case the is­land’s crops, an­i­mals and agro-pro­cess­ing projects.

There will al­so be sev­er­al events lead­ing up to the cel­e­bra­tions.

Speak­ing at the launch chair­man of the To­ba­go Wood Food Day Com­mit­tee, Kieshell Per­cy, said in To­ba­go the fo­cus will be on what has been achieved re­gard­ing food se­cu­ri­ty.

“This event is used as a plat­form to pro­mote agri­cul­ture and is a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort among the var­i­ous stake­hold­ers of the is­land. We are tak­ing strides in the ar­eas of train­ing, ed­u­cat­ing and farm de­vel­op­ment, so as to leave no man be­hind,” Per­cy said.

Per­cy added the agri­cul­ture sec­tor must be boost­ed on the is­land.

“There is mer­it in em­pha­sis­ing among our peo­ple, the need to rad­i­cal­ly in­crease our agri­cul­tur­al and val­ue-added pro­duc­tion. This move­ment has been ini­ti­at­ed by the Di­vi­sion (of Food Se­cu­ri­ty, Na­tion­al Re­sources, the En­vi­ron­ment and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment). We al­so want to raise aware­ness of agri­cul­tur­al is­sues on the is­land and pro­vide fea­si­ble so­lu­tions to rem­e­dy them, to pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive train­ing through the pro­vi­sion of work­shops and sem­i­nars in ar­eas of in­ter­est with the view of de­vel­op­ing the agribusi­ness sec­tor,” Per­cy added.

Sec­re­tary of Food Se­cu­ri­ty, Nat­ur­al Re­sources, the En­vi­ron­ment and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Natisha Charles-Pan­tin high­light­ed a drop in agri­cul­tur­al pro­duce on the is­land which she said called for bol­ster­ing the se­cu­ri­ty of food sup­plies.

“His­tor­i­cal da­ta in­di­cates that agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion in this coun­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly To­ba­go is on a steady de­cline. Con­se­quent­ly, the re­liance on food im­ports to sat­is­fy our pop­u­la­tion is ex­pand­ing and grow­ing in­creas­ing­ly con­cern­ing for the di­vi­sion, which I lead and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly by ex­ten­sion.

“As World Food Day fo­cus­es our at­ten­tion glob­al­ly on the mil­lions of peo­ple who can­not af­ford food and ac­cess to healthy food. We must be mind­ful of our own sit­u­a­tion at home since cel­e­brat­ing the re­turn of World Food Day cel­e­bra­tions last year, af­ter the two-year hia­tus due to COVID,” she said.

Charles-Pan­tin added, “The Di­vi­sion has ac­cel­er­at­ed work for the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of the agri­cul­ture sec­tor, with all in­tents of se­cur­ing food se­cu­ri­ty for the is­land.”

She said in­vest­ment in ma­chin­ery has been made in the quest to in­crease agri­cul­ture out­put.

“Six brand new trac­tors and im­ple­ments have been pur­chased to aug­ment the fleet at our trac­tor pool unit. This in­jec­tion of re­sources is ex­pect­ed to ad­dress the long stand­ing wait­ing list for land prepa­ra­tion and main­te­nance ser­vices,” she said.

The Area Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Ba­co­let/Bagatelle al­so shared that train­ing in the sec­tor is on­go­ing and that new farm­ing tech­niques have been in­tro­duced as well. “We con­tin­ue to in­crease the ca­pac­i­ty of our farm­ers, home gar­den­ers and agri-proces­sors through our ex­pan­sive train­ing pro­gramme. We have in­creased sup­plies and ex­tend­ed va­ri­eties of plant­i­ng ma­te­ri­als to farm­ers. We have ac­quired Smart Gar­den planters and are cur­rent­ly dis­trib­ut­ing these self-wa­ter­ing sys­tems to all 57 schools reg­is­tered with the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search and Tech­nol­o­gy.

“Con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion with our na­tion­al and re­gion­al part­ners is on­go­ing, such as the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­ga­ni­za­tion,” said Charles-Pan­tin.

Mean­while, fea­ture speak­er, Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Dr Faith B Yis­rael, while re­flect­ing on the 2023 World Food Day Theme, spoke about the im­por­tance of a wa­ter sup­ply in food pro­duc­tion. She shared her own ex­pe­ri­ence in cop­ing with wa­ter short­age at home.

“In my house­hold be­cause we are used to the wa­ter woes. We have sac­ri­ficed and pur­chased three tanks ... I thought let us re­al­ly se­ri­ous­ly think about what it would take for us to live true to this theme. Wa­ter is life. Wa­ter is food. Leave no one be­hind. You know when we think about farm­ing, and food se­cu­ri­ty I don’t know that we tru­ly un­der­stand what that means. (For the last week and a half) fol­low­ing that un­for­tu­nate events on the Cabo Star. When you look at our shells. When you look at what is avail­able for pur­chase. You have to won­der is re­al­ly on­ly a week­end, is re­al­ly less than a month. But this is where we are,” she said.