Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Twelve years af­ter the clo­sure of the sug­ar cane in­dus­try, Cab­i­net has fi­nal­ly ap­proved $130 mil­lion com­pen­sa­tion for cane farm­ers to be used for agri­cul­tur­al di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

The funds were pro­vid­ed by the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU) to ad­dress the neg­a­tive so­cial and eco­nom­ic im­pact of the clo­sure of Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed in 2003.

Dur­ing a meet­ing with four cane-farm­ing groups on Wednes­day, Plan­ning Min­is­ter Dr Bhoen­dra­datt Tewarie an­nounced that Cab­i­net had ap­proved the dis­burse­ment of funds to be used for the ben­e­fit of pri­vate cane farm­ers and cane cut­ters.

Tewarie, who is the na­tion­al au­tho­ris­ing of­fi­cer for the EU Grant Re­sources, said the sched­ule for dis­burse­ment high­lights a first tranche of $27 mil­lion, fol­lowed by a sec­ond tranche of $75 mil­lion and a third tranche of $28 mil­lion to be paid in 2016.

He said once the groups agree, a tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee, led by the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment, in­clud­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the cane farm­ers, would de­vel­op a suit­able for­mu­la for eq­ui­table dis­tri­b­u­tion of the funds.

Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Cane Pro­duc­ers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, the Cane Farm­ers' Co-op­er­a­tive, Trinidad Is­land­wide Cane Farm­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion and Di­rect De­liv­ery Cane Farm­ers' Co-op­er­a­tive and EU rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kathrin Ren­ner were al­so present at the meet­ing.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of the Cane Pro­duc­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Seuk­er­an Tam­bie said the $130 mil­lion would not be giv­en di­rect­ly to cane farm­ers.

Based on a strate­gic busi­ness plan sub­mit­ted by the as­so­ci­a­tion in 2013, Tam­bie said the funds would be used to set up sev­er­al agri­cul­tur­al projects, in­clud­ing com­mer­cial hot pep­pers, cit­rus and mixed crop, aquapon­ics, rab­bit-rear­ing and sheep and goat farm­ing.

Tam­bie said a needs-based analy­sis re­port would be done in the for­mer sug­ar belt.

Say­ing cane farm­ers were over­looked when com­pen­sa­tion was dis­trib­uted to sug­ar work­ers in 2003, Tam­bie added: "I am pleased that af­ter so many years Cab­i­net has giv­en fi­nal ap­proval the fund­ing to be used for the ben­e­fit of cane farm­ers."

Tam­bie said when the in­dus­try was closed in 2003, more than 6,000 cane farm­ers and 3,000 cane cut­ters were left on the bread­line.

He said sui­cide rates climbed, fam­i­lies broke up and pover­ty peaked. Tam­bie said all of the for­mer cane cut­ters and farm­ers would be lo­cat­ed and a tech­ni­cal team would co-or­di­nate re­sources. He said an­oth­er meet­ing would be held among stake­hold­ers next week.