Eat Local Day will be launched this Wednesday aimed at strengthening linkages among education, research and outreach.
Agricultural economist Omardath Maharaj explained that the Faculty of Food and Agriculture will partner with the National 4-H Leaders Council to build a “farm to school” movement by supporting several aspects of capacity building, resource development and sharing, professional development, policy development and advocacy in the local food and agriculture sector.
The 4-H organisation of T&T is a unique cooperative relationship between the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Education, the Divisions of the Tobago House of Assembly responsible for Agriculture and Education, in Tobago, and the 4-H Leaders’ Council of T&T.
Maharaj said at a national level this country has failed to invest in the productive capacity of the agriculture sector to meet the needs of industry in processing and food manufacturing.
“We have also failed to develop the sub-sectors in which we may possess a comparative and competitive advantage such as basic fruits and vegetables, meats, provisions, and staple crops such as rice or food mass sources such as breadfruit,” he added.
Dean of the Faculty, Professor Wayne Ganpat, emphasised his focus on food sovereignty notwithstanding the mounting challenges such as climate change, poverty, rural neglect, food and nutrition security, entrepreneurship and the range of issues which impact the future of our food.
He noted that Eat Local Day has extended the faculty’s recent partnership with BreadfruitTrees.com on World Food Day which initiated an on-going exercise to plant 105 food trees.
The objective is to assist in securing the campus community in times of disaster and demonstrate a model which can be adopted by other stakeholders at the national and community level.
Over 300 school children and their respective 4-H clubs have registered to attend the event on Wednesday and to benefit from an array of 100 per cent locally produced food, beverages, displays and sampling
Natasha Lee, president of the council said there must there must be a genuine drive for the education of young minds with the endless possibilities of their food which can be produced from strictly local content.
The event is also expected feature the fading skill of making farine, substituting for healthier local options such as roucou for sugar in stew, a collection of roots and herbs instead of curry powder, less refined starches and greater use of provisions.
Eat Local Day by design seeks to bring together several stakeholders and interests.
This collaborative approach is also entrenched in small and micro-enterprise (SME) clustering or nucleated development.