Camille Clarke

Promis­es, promis­es and more promis­es.This is what an­gry farm­ers said they been re­ceiv­ing over the years from the Gov­ern­ment.Var­i­ous farm­ing as­so­ci­a­tions falling un­der the um­brel­la of the Na­tion­al Food Crop Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NF­FA) protest­ed yes­ter­day at the Nor­ris De­onar­ine Whole­sale Mar­ket, Ma­coya.At the protest, they held plac­ards, ban­ners and threw pump­kins and veg­eta­bles.

The farm­ers said over the past few years they had to deal with low food costs, flood­ing, thieves, un­fair prices for goods and a lack of ac­com­mo­da­tion at the mar­ket.Pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Barath Ram­per­sad called for in­ter­ven­tion not on­ly from the Gov­ern­ment but from any­one who could as­sist.He is seek­ing the Gov­ern­ment's as­sis­tance to al­so sub­sidise prod­ucts, such as fer­tilis­ers, in­sec­ti­cides and labour."We are here to high­light all the ills the farm­ers in T&T are suf­fer­ing as food crop farm­ers.

"The min­is­ter said he want­ed to bring cheap food to the coun­try. The cost of pro­duce has gone up and we are sell­ing at the same price," he said.Ram­per­sad said farm­ers have to pay bills like any­one else but their sale prices have not in­creased since 1970."We are sell­ing un­der cost, and we are not be­ing tak­en se­ri­ous­ly and we are fed up. We are bare­ly sur­viv­ing and a farmer has to sell his wag­on to make pay­ments on the ADB (Agri­cul­tur­al De­vel­op­ment Bank) loan," he added.

For­eign food which was brought in­to the mar­ket was al­so be­ing kept un­der a cool shed while the farm­ers are bak­ing in the hot sun, he said."This is the farmer's mar­ket. We want to be a First World coun­try; you must feed your­self first and don't de­pend on no­body. Oil and gas will run out. They need to in­vest in agri­cul­ture," he added.Ram­per­sad said sev­er­al of the farm­ers were al­so to sup­ply pom­me­cythere and sup­plied 15,000 pounds but were turned away.

"They on­ly ac­cept­ed 3,000 pounds and said we are sup­posed to take back the rest. What the farmer must do with that ex­tra pro­duce on their hands?" he asked.Ram­per­sad said the Gov­ern­ment in­vest­ed mil­lions of dol­lars to low­er food prices on the Ca­roni Green Ini­tia­tive but farm­ers were pro­duc­ing the same food that was be­ing grown. "So, they are de­stroy­ing the food farm­ers."

An­oth­er prob­lem, he added, was wait­ing for a year to be com­pen­sat­ed when crops were de­stroyed by flood wa­ters.Sec­re­tary of the Bon Air Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion and sec­re­tary of the NF­FA See­ta Mo­hammed said their farm­ers have prob­lems with road con­di­tions, lack of wa­ter, no leas­ing on their prop­er­ties and thieves.