With free ad­mis­sion and give­aways such as plants, seedlings and com­pa­ny sou­venirs, hun­dreds of pa­trons flocked to the over 300 ex­hibitors at the Agri In­vest­ment Fo­rum and Ex­po II, at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, on the sec­ond day of its open­ing, on Sat­ur­day.

The vil­lage-style ex­hi­bi­tion catered to a wide cross-sec­tion of the pub­lic, in­clud­ing food­ies, gar­den­ing en­thu­si­asts and chil­dren, with a pet­ting zoo, farmer's mar­ket, choco­latiers and food and drink booths. The health-con­scious had an as­sort­ment of prod­ucts to buy or sam­ple such as sweet pota­to flour or cas­sa­va dou­bles.

As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Ta­ble Egg Pro­duc­ers (ATT­TEP) vice pres­i­dent and sec­re­tary Den­nis Ram­s­ingh­been said, "This is one of the biggest agri­cul­tur­al events for the year, and it's been a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for the as­so­ci­a­tion. We launched a new face/lo­go for the as­so­ci­a­tion, we're brand­ed now where you can dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween lo­cal and for­eign eggs.

"It was an op­por­tune mo­ment, we were able to launch with Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Dr Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali, Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, and prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley present on Fri­day."

He said the ex­po al­lowed many farm­ers and pro­duc­ers to show­case what was avail­able in T&T, al­though it took "too long" to re­alise how im­por­tant lo­cal pro­duc­tion was.

A little girl sit in a Powered Tractor at the Agri investment Forum and Expo 11 at the Queen's Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

KERWIN PIERRE

Ram­s­ingh­been said it took the pan­dem­ic and oth­er cur­rent world prob­lems to re­alise how vi­tal feed­ing the na­tion, nu­tri­tion and team ef­fort were.

One Acre Farms CEO Lau­ra Per­sad, whose Ch­agua­nas and Cunu­pia farms pro­duce a wide range of veg­eta­bles for re­tail and whole­sale, had pump­kin, pa­paya and sweet pota­toes for sale.

She said that the ex­po was a boon to farm­ers, shop­pers loved the prices and va­ri­ety, how­ev­er, farm­ers ex­pe­ri­enced a lot of chal­lenges such as floods and bad roads.

Per­sad added they were start­ing to get help in that de­part­ment, an­oth­er chal­lenge was that while there was a whole­sale mar­ket, farm­ers do not have guar­an­teed mar­kets for their pro­duce in terms of get­ting a cer­tain price.

Members of the public at the Agri Investment Forum and Expo 11 at the Queen's Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

KERWIN PIERRE

She re­vealed that the cost of fer­til­iz­ers went up by al­most 200 per cent in the past six months, and they were get­ting the same price for their pro­duce, but cap­i­tal costs had es­ca­lat­ed.

Agri­cul­tur­al econ­o­mist Omar­dath Ma­haraj com­ment­ed that one of the missed op­por­tu­ni­ties of the ex­po was the an­nounce­ment of an Eat Lo­cal Day in T&T or a con­sen­sus for the same across Cari­com where these con­ver­sa­tions and ac­tiv­i­ties with the as­so­ci­at­ed in­dus­try pro­mo­tion, en­tre­pre­neur­ship and ed­u­ca­tion could be con­sol­i­dat­ed ac­cord­ing­ly.

The ex­po ends Sun­day.