SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Gov­ern­ment plans to re­duce im­port­ed sta­ples by val­ues rang­ing be­tween 25 to 100 per cent. This was an­nounced by Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj on Fri­day when a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing (MOU) was signed to in­crease the use of cas­sa­va lo­cal­ly. he MOU was signed be­tween Namde­v­co, Ca­roni Green, the Na­tion­al Schools Di­etary Ser­vices Lim­it­ed and Nu­trim­ix at Chan­cel­lor Ho­tel in St Anns.

Ma­haraj said for the pe­ri­od 2005-2009, 236,700 tonnes of sta­ples was im­port­ed at an an­nu­al cost of $649 mil­lion. He said this rep­re­sent­ed 29 per cent of the to­tal food bill at a time when T&T was on­ly pro­duc­ing eight per cent of the re­quired sta­ples.The min­is­ter said the Na­tion­al Food Ac­tion Plan 2012-2015 en­cour­ages strate­gic part­ner­ships and al­liances in agri­cul­ture in­volv­ing the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors.

"I am cer­tain to­day's MOU sign­ing will firm­ly root cas­sa­va as an im­por­tant sta­ple in the food se­cu­ri­ty land­scape of T&T," he said. Ca­roni Green will be fa­cil­i­tat­ing farm­ers who wish to plant cas­sa­va which will be sold to Namde­v­co. The School Feed­ing Pro­gramme will be in­tro­duc­ing cas­sa­va in­to the 120,000 meals served dai­ly and cas­sa­va it will al­so be sup­plied to Nu­trim­ix to make flour and an­i­mal feed.

Ma­haraj said there was in­creased pro­duc­tion of yam, cas­sa­va and sweet pota­to be­tween 2012-2013 at rates of 15.2 per cent, 52,2 per cent and 58.2 per cent re­spec­tive­ly.