RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The late Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning would like­ly be rolling in his grave if he found out what has hap­pened to his 2020 vi­sion for agri­cul­ture.

In 2007, Man­ning pro­posed the idea of mega-farms, de­vot­ing $100 mil­lion to es­tab­lish nine farms.

He hoped that the farms will train farm­ers in mod­ern agri­cul­tur­al tech­niques and al­so to put a dent on the do­mes­tic food im­port bill so that by 2020, T&T could be par­tial­ly self-suf­fi­cient with food.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the mega farm project to­tal­ly failed and much of T&T’s valu­able land re­sources went to waste.

To­day these mega-farms are out of op­er­a­tion, some have been sold and oth­ers aban­doned.

Dur­ing an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, mega-farmer and en­tre­pre­neur Joe Pires, who ac­quired 200 acres of State lands to es­tab­lish two mega-farms at Tuck­er Val­ley and Ed­in­burgh, Ch­agua­nas said a lack of in­fra­struc­ture un­der­mined the suc­cess of his mega-farms.

He said the 100 acres of land at Ed­in­burgh was nev­er farmed dur­ing the dry sea­son be­cause there was no ir­ri­ga­tion.

His 100 acres par­cel of land at Tuck­er Val­ley, Ch­aguara­mas was un­prof­itable and in 2018, the gov­ern­ment un­der Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat took back 50 acres to give to the Guave Road farm­ers.

At that time Plan­ning Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son Reg­is said the Guave Road farm­ers had been in con­stant oc­cu­pa­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 122.6 acres of the land in ex­cess of 30 years and leas­es would be pro­vid­ed to reg­u­larise them.

But Pires said the farm­ers nev­er put the land to pro­duc­tive use.

Out of the re­main­ing 50 acres he owned, Pires said 20 acres were still forest­ed, about 10 acres were be­ing farmed and the rest was used for green­hous­es, car parks, liv­ing quar­ters and a restau­rant. That meant on­ly 15 acres out of 50 acres went in­to ac­tu­al farm­ing.

Un­prof­itabil­i­ty forced Pires to sell the re­main­ing 50-acre par­cel to De­vi Boodoos­ingh, the own­er of 02 Park who now or­gan­is­es wed­dings and oth­er func­tions on the agri­cul­tur­al es­tate.

Pires said this of­fered a greater mar­gin of prof­itabil­i­ty than ac­tu­al farm­ing.

He said the 100-acre par­cel at Ch­agua­nas is be­ing cul­ti­vat­ed slow­ly with fruit trees.

“We plant three to four acres of fruit trees per year. It would cost us $150,000 to put down ir­ri­ga­tion and as a farmer, we do not want to spend that. We just want to plant,” Pires said.

What will make mega farms prof­itable?

Pires said the idea of mega farm­ing can­not be prof­itable in the cur­rent state.

He said in­fra­struc­ture was a big prob­lem and the gov­ern­ment should pro­vide ir­ri­ga­tion is farm­ing was to be­come prof­itable.

Pires rec­om­mend­ed that Farm Parks be set up across the coun­try com­pris­ing of 100-acre parcels al­lo­cat­ed to mul­ti­ple farm­ers in five-acre blocks. He said each farmer should have leas­es for a year. He said every farmer should be­long to a co­op­er­a­tive and should pool funds to­geth­er to pur­chase equip­ment to be used with­in the 100-acre par­cel. Pires said each Farm Park should have prop­er in­fra­struc­ture and a pack­ing fa­cil­i­ty. He said an ir­ri­ga­tion line should be set up link­ing all 100 acre Farm Parks. This ir­ri­ga­tion line could utilise the wa­ter used in the cool­ing tow­ers of plants on the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

He not­ed that NAMDE­V­CO should fa­cil­i­tate mar­kets for the farm­ers. Im­ports should be re­duced in­cre­men­tal­ly on an an­nu­al ba­sis with set tar­gets and T&T should fo­cus on agro-pro­cess­ing whilst form­ing part­ner­ships to utilise land in Guyana and else­where. Pires said toma­to paste and pineap­ple, co­conut, paw­paw and even lo­cal­ly pro­duced milk should of­fer op­por­tu­ni­ties for down­stream in­dus­tries.

Mean­while, plant re­searcher and breed­er Ramdeo Boon­doo said the mega-farm project failed be­cause the plan was in­com­plete.

“The farm was sup­posed to be a pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ment fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the State. NAMDE­V­CO was sup­posed to or­gan­ise qual­i­ty con­trol and mar­kets. Through NAMDE­V­CO, a sched­uled was sup­posed to be out­lined so that farm­ers will know what to pro­duce and what quan­ti­ty,” he said. How­ev­er, pol­i­tics taint­ed the mega-farms and peo­ple who had no in­ter­est in farm­ing, took pos­ses­sion of valu­able State land,” Boon­doo added.

He de­nied that lar­ce­ny made the farms un­prof­itable.

“When I was in the Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety we looked at is­sues of land tenure, prae­di­al lar­ce­ny and lack of in­fra­struc­ture which un­der­mined prof­itabil­i­ty in the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor. These prob­lems still ex­ist to­day,” he said.

Late last year, Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat said the gov­ern­ment want­ed mega-farm­ers and not mega-farms. Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary An­gela Siew in 2017 said the mega-farm project had been shelved be­cause of lack of fund­ing. She said many is­sues with leas­es could not be fixed be­cause of staffing woes at the Land Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion.

Sev­er­al emails and What­sapp mes­sages were sent to Min­is­ter Ramb­harat and his com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Do­minic Hinds for com­ment. Min­is­ter Ramb­harat did not re­spond to ques­tions. Hinds said a re­sponse will be is­sued some­time next week.