Perhaps with an eye to providing early momentum for the region’s undertaking to reduce its extra-regional food imports by 25% by 2025, Trinidad and Tobago’s National Entrepreneurship Development Company (NEDCO) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the country’s Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) which a report in a section of the Trinidad and Tobago media says is intended to raise the profile of local food production in the twin-island Republic.
Speaking at the signing ceremony yesterday, Chairman of the state-run NEDCO, Clarry Benn, reportedly said that the signing of the MOU will enable the organization to provide support for participants in training and development, business business advisory services, mentorship and networking opportunities.
Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley is among Caribbean Heads who have shown interest in the recent regional focus on the strengthening of its food security bona fides through initiatives that include the 25×2025 reduced food importation target alongside wider initiatives to enhance its own bona fides as a robust food-producing region.
At the signing ceremony for the MOU Benn reportedly said that NEDCO will also be providing support for initiatives to provide facilities for product development, research and processing along the agro-value chain, issues that have already arisen in the wider CARICOM discourses on the strengthening of its food security profile. “We will promote the growth and development of ADB’s clients for financial independence, stability and competitiveness through focused financial products,” is what Benn is quoted in an Andrea Perez story published in Thursday’s issue of the Trinidad and Tobago’s Daily Express, as saying.
Indications that growing numbers of young people from the twin-island Republic may be paying keener attention in agriculture as an option are reflected in a disclosure by the ADB’s Deputy Chairman, Randall Mohammed, that the ABD “has been able to attract an increase of 32 per cent in the number of young people seeking information on agricultural loans over this period,” Perez writes.
T&T’s Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, Avinash Singh, too, is recognizing the alliance between the ADB and NEDCO “will equip the mutual clients with the knowledge to transition into agri-entrepreneurs,” Perez reports.
The signing of the MOU between NEDCO and the ADB is unlikely to be lost to the rest of the region even as the food security profile of the Caribbean became more pronounced in the wake of initiatives led by Guyana and Barbados to raise wider awareness of the need to strengthen the region’s food security profile and which manifested itself in public food security-related events in the two countries helped to push the region towards an important commitment to reduce its dependence on imported foods whilst embracing a food security strategy that takes account of both the sufficiency of food available to the people of the region as well as the nutritional value of the foods consumed by Caribbean people.
