The Trinidad and Tobago private sector will play a key role in driving the implementation mechanisms being created by the government to support its investment in the refashioning of the country’s agricultural sector in response to the global food crisis.
At the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) agri-business forum held in George-town from June 6th-7th, Arnold Piggott, the oil rich twin island republic’s Agriculture Minister unveiled an elaborate plan by his government to reposition agriculture by seeing it “not in the traditional narrow context in which it has been seen and valued only in terms of the farm output, but to view and value it in the broader context of agri-business.”
Piggott told the regional discourse on food security that the repositioning of agriculture envisaged by Trinidad and Tobago means that “we fully embrace the concept that the sector includes agricultural production, agro-processing, food manufacturing, special and unique culinary cuisine food service and agri-entertainment/agro-tourism.
Piggott told the forum that the Trinidad and Tobago “agri-business” concept means that the sector would now be seen “as playing a major rather than a minor role in the national economy.
He said that the new “agri business concept was being buttressed by several policy measures aimed at ensuring its success including strong financial and institutional support for agri-business organizations and significant increases in capital investment in agri-business infrastructure; significant increases in the range and areas of incentives along the agri-business value chain, and according to Piggott the new measures to be implemented by the Trinidad and Tobago government will be supported by new implementation mechanisms “that will be driven by the private sector to ensure efficient implementation of the agri-business strategy.”
According to Piggott these new private sector-run mechanisms will be responsible for coordinating the public agencies that are involved in the implementation of the non-commercial components of the programme including land-administration, farm infrastructure, marketing and information infrastructure and loan financing.
Part of the strategy outlined by Piggott for the repositioning of agriculture in Trinidad and Tobago involves assisting the large number of small farmers and other small agri-entrepreneurs in the country to organize themselves into associations and other forms of business organizations and to provide them with a range of support services including contract production and marketing services, “Simultaneously, we will promote the establishment of large technology-driven farms and other large-scale agri-businesses.
Under its new national agri-business venture Trinidad and Tobago will be seeking to develop and successfully establish at least ten new internationally competitive value-added agri-products for the local and international markets.
