As we re­flect on the strug­gles and op­por­tu­ni­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with In­di­an Ar­rival in T&T, farm­ers and stake­hold­ers in the food pro­duc­tion sec­tor wish to re­mind the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that in ad­di­tion to tra­di­tions and cus­toms, mu­sic, dance and fash­ion, food pro­duc­tion and a bet­ter stan­dard of liv­ing were the rea­sons.

Through the pe­ri­od of in­den­ture­ship, many born agri­cul­tur­al­ists saved and in­vest­ed rel­a­tive­ly small sums in parcels of land.

Over­com­ing the bar­ri­ers of race, re­li­gion and lan­guage. His­to­ry records that the labour­ers be­came the largest group of peas­ant pro­pri­etors on the is­land. As was ev­i­dent then, and glar­ing now, com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion and west­ern­i­sa­tion of lifestyles se­ri­ous­ly un­der­mined and erod­ed the sta­bil­i­ty of agri­cul­ture gen­er­al­ly.

Agri­cul­ture and rur­al life yes­ter­year en­gaged a cross sec­tion of men, women, boys and girls. A time when fast food and pre-pack­aged meals were dis­tant from the di­et, meal sub­sti­tutes and pills were not re­gard­ed as food and nu­tri­tion sources for the fam­i­ly and a de­pen­den­cy on im­port­ed food was un­think­able.

These were the ear­ly days of ex­ten­sion ser­vices where neigh­bours and friends would share ideas and cre­ative tech­niques to in­crease yield, max­imise prof­its, sus­tain liveli­hoods, teach re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and more im­por­tant­ly, keep the com­mu­ni­ty to­geth­er.

Dur­ing and be­yond the in­den­ture­ship pe­ri­od, the ex­pand­ed work­force boost­ed the econ­o­my by in­vig­o­rat­ing the sug­ar, rice, co­coa and cof­fee es­tates.

As we re­lin­quished these traits over the years, the cul­ture as­so­ci­at­ed with agri­cul­ture dis­si­pat­ed. The so­cial role (em­ploy­ment, the sta­bil­i­ty of set­tle­ment), cul­tur­al role (the preser­va­tion of tra­di­tions and the char­ac­ter of the coun­try) and the land­scape-cre­at­ing func­tion with­ered along­side mas­sive rur­al to ur­ban mi­gra­tion and that di­rec­tion of op­por­tu­ni­ty.

In ad­di­tion, T&T moved to be­ing a net im­porter of rice (HS 1006) and sug­ar (HS 1701–cane or beet sug­ar and chem­i­cal­ly pure su­crose, in sol­id form), among many com­modi­ties, hav­ing spent an es­ti­mat­ed TT$1.105 bil­lion on these alone be­tween 2013 and 2015 ac­cord­ing to UN COM­TRADE Sta­tis­tics.

To­day, there is a call to re­turn to the ba­sic tenets of pro­duc­tion, pro­cess­ing and con­sump­tion of lo­cal­ly grown and har­vest­ed foods as the coun­try is forced to­wards food sov­er­eign­ty but would even­tu­al­ly de­mand it by way of pub­lic pol­i­cy.

The world eco­nom­ic cli­mate and our cir­cum­stances as dic­tat­ed by en­er­gy prices al­low our peo­ple to be re­silient if our food sup­ply chain is lo­cal­ly-dri­ven and the ca­pac­i­ty of all cit­i­zens to do things for our­selves, es­pe­cial­ly the most vul­ner­a­ble among us, is strength­ened.

In 2016, every stra­ta of the pop­u­la­tion must not on­ly be en­cour­aged to be­come in­no­v­a­tive, in­ven­tive and cus­tomer-friend­ly but must be seen as a new labour force work­ing to­geth­er in the eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances.

There must be lead­er­ship of new peo­ple with a new cul­ture.

In the book Folks, This Ain't Nor­mal: A Farmer's Ad­vice for Hap­pi­er Hens, Health­i­er Peo­ple, and a Bet­ter World, Joel Salatin not­ed that "The first su­per­mar­ket sup­pos­ed­ly ap­peared on the Amer­i­can land­scape in 1946. That is not very long ago. Un­til then, where was all the food? Dear folks, the food was in homes, gar­dens, lo­cal fields and forests. It was near kitchens, near ta­bles, near bed­sides. It was in the pantry, the cel­lar, the back­yard."

Let us as a coun­try use the oc­ca­sion to com­mit to meek­ness, self-suf­fi­cien­cy and a re­turn to the land.

Omar­dath Ma­haraj

Agri­cul­tur­al Econ­o­mist