Seemingly mindful that Trinidad and Tobago and much of the rest of the Caribbean are confronted with an existential food security threat that is accentuated by erratic weather patterns reposed in climate change, Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley has been commenting on the need for the twin-island republic to ‘beef up’ its agricultural credentials.
Delivering the feature address at the opening of the 2024 Agri Expo at the Queen’s Park Savannah last Saturday, Dr. Rowley, according to a report in the Saturday August 17 Guardian newspaper, asserted that the challenge confronting the country’s agriculture sector reposes in the fact that many of the still active farmers belong to what he reportedly described as “the “older cohorts of the population”, and while many of the older generation of the country’s farmers have passed on, they have not been replaced by young people.
The observation by the Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister comes at a time when the region as a whole is challenged to burnish its food security bona fides following concerns expressed by high-profile food security agencies, including the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), over what they appear to see as the diminished capacity of some countries in the region to feed themselves and the nutrition-related consequences of that phenomenon. Guyana, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago are currently regarded as the region’s ‘lead’ countries in the push to enhance the Caribbean’s food security credentials.
Dr. Rowley’s remarks at the recent Agri Expo included a comment to the effect that his administration is currently engaged in a programme to address the issue of ensuring increased youth involvement in the sector. Dr. Rowley disclosed that the Trinidad and Tobago government is currently offering a training exercise that is engaging 1,500 young people in batches of “200 at a time.” At the end of the training programme the new farmers will be expected to embark on private initiatives designed to ‘beef up’ the country’s agriculture sector. In outlining the initiative, the Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister named the country’s Agriculture Development Bank and the Cipriani College as institutions that will become involved with the project. The University of the West Indies is reportedly already involved in the project.
The need for the Caribbean to significantly ‘beef up’ its agricultural credentials has been accentuated in recent years, first, by the concerns expressed by international agencies, including the FAO, about the state of food security in the Caribbean and, as well, by the ongoing regional food security initiative on which there has been no definitive update from the ‘lead heads’, Guyana’s President, Irfaan Ali, and Barbados’ Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, since the disclosure in the state-run Guyana Chronicle in January 2023 that the Food Terminal was ‘taking shape.’
Dr. Rowley reportedly noted that while agriculture accounted for approximately 5% of Trinidad and Tobago’s economy, the sector is important since, every day, there is an expectation that people will have access to three meals. Dr. Rowley also reportedly asserted that the recent Expo event was part of a CARICOM initiative undertaken by various governments in the region in which an “extra effort” was being made to engage and modernize the agricultural sector.
