CHARLES KONG SOO

charles.kong­soo@guardian.co.tt

Ajay Aakash Balkissoon’s love of agri­cul­ture goes back sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions to his great-grand­fa­ther’s time when he plant­ed sug­ar cane, rice, cof­fee, co­coa, and cashew nuts as well as main­tained a kitchen gar­den.

The life­long ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the field is his pas­sion, pas­time and pro­fes­sion and he is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a BSc in Agri­cul­ture and En­tre­pre­neur­ship at UTT.

Balkissoon, 19, from Todd’s Road, Ch­agua­nas, is learn­ing about the meth­ods and sci­ences re­lat­ed to agri­cul­ture, as well as busi­ness and en­tre­pre­neur­ship as he wants to be­come an agri­cul­tur­al en­tre­pre­neur.

He start­ed en­gag­ing in agri­cul­ture in the 4-H Club in pri­ma­ry school, and his de­ci­sion to study agri­cul­ture at the ter­tiary lev­el was based on his pas­sion to give back to his pri­ma­ry school and com­mu­ni­ty and feed the na­tion in the fu­ture.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Balkissoon said he was a mem­ber of The Sweet Hands 4-H Club which was found­ed around eight to nine years ago.

“The 4-H leader re­spon­si­ble for the club was Mrs Natasha Lee and the stu­dent body com­prised the Stan­dard Four class at Todd’s Road RC Pri­ma­ry School. At that time, the school gar­den was noth­ing but bar­ren clay beds and grass. Up­on es­tab­lish­ing our stu­dent ex­ec­u­tive, we set to work on the school gar­den. Af­ter many days of prepa­ra­tion, we were able to plant our first crop of patchoi, let­tuce and cu­cum­bers.”

He said they were able to sell the pro­duce and in­vest­ed the mon­ey in hir­ing a trac­tor to plough and bank the gar­den. They were able to plant more crops and ob­tain more prof­its and, around that time, he was elect­ed club pres­i­dent, be­com­ing the third pres­i­dent of The Sweet Hands club.

Balkissoon said the stu­dents then de­cid­ed to ex­pand their va­ri­ety of crops and set up an aquapon­ics sys­tem which in­volved the rear­ing of tilapia, as aqua­cul­ture and grow­ing plants hy­dro­pon­i­cal­ly us­ing the nu­tri­ents from the fish waste. The club al­so en­gaged in a bake-off, an art com­pe­ti­tion, en­vi­ron­men­tal quizzes and many oth­er events.

He said be­ing a part of the 4-H Club had a pos­i­tive im­pact on him, teach­ing him lead­er­ship skills, and team­work, and piqued his in­ter­est in agri­cul­ture.

Lat­er when Balkissoon went on to Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Ch­agua­nas, there wasn’t a 4-H Club but an en­vi­ron­men­tal club, which he joined. The club was re­spon­si­ble for var­i­ous beach clean-ups and plant­i­ng var­i­ous fruit trees with­in the school en­vi­ron­ment.

Af­ter grad­u­at­ing from col­lege, he de­cid­ed to pur­sue agri­cul­ture in ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion be­cause he be­lieved then and still does now that agri­cul­ture is nec­es­sary for a coun­try to be self-sus­tain­able. It is al­so the field that in­ter­ests him the most.

Balkissoon said that agri­cul­ture en­abled a na­tion to feed its cit­i­zens, yet the num­ber of young peo­ple in the coun­try that are in­volved in the field is very low.

He said he in­tend­ed to con­tribute to the coun­try’s food se­cu­ri­ty and pro­duce food for the peo­ple.

Balkissoon added that his in­ten­tion was to ed­u­cate the chil­dren at the pri­ma­ry school he at­tend­ed about agri­cul­ture and its im­por­tance as well as mo­ti­vate them to en­gage in pro­duc­ing their own food. He said hope­ful­ly they might go on to be­come farm­ers and agri­cul­tur­al en­tre­pre­neurs to con­tribute to the food se­cu­ri­ty of the na­tion.

Balkissoon said he would en­cour­age chil­dren to join a lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty or a school 4-H Club as the op­por­tu­ni­ties for learn­ing and growth are ex­cel­lent.

Balkissoon’s in­ten­tion, how­ev­er, is to join the Todd’s Road RC Sweet Hands 4-H Club as a vol­un­teer leader and ed­u­cate the kids about agri­cul­ture and its im­por­tance.

Ajay Balkissoon salting a crop of pak choy at The Sweet Hands 4-H Club's garden at Todd’s Road RC Primary School in Chaguanas.

Balkissoon’s lessons in agri­cul­ture came from his par­ents at a young age and for as long as he can re­mem­ber, they al­ways had a home gar­den. He said, how­ev­er, he did not ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate its im­por­tance un­til he be­came a mem­ber of the Sweet Hands 4-H Club.

Cur­rent­ly, the fam­i­ly home gar­den con­tains let­tuce, kale, patchoi, pi­men­tos, chives, cel­ery and var­i­ous fruit trees.

He en­joys plant­i­ng cel­ery, cu­cum­bers and hot pep­pers and his favourite veg­eta­bles to eat are me­l­on­gene and pep­pers.

While Balkissoon is pas­sion­ate about agri­cul­ture, he is al­so in­ter­est­ed in neu­ro­science, psy­chol­o­gy and busi­ness and his hob­bies are gar­den­ing, read­ing and ex­er­cis­ing, and play­ing foot­ball and ta­ble ten­nis in his free time.

Balkissoon’s favourite food is bar­be­cued pork, his favourite dessert is cheese­cake, his favourite tele­vi­sion show is Peaky Blind­ers, his favourite movie is In­ter­stel­lar and his favourite type of mu­sic is EDM.

He has two dogs named Mil­ly and Blos­som.

Balkissoon said that The Sweet Hands 4-H Club had taught him many things, but it was all due to the ef­forts of past teacher Natasha Lee try­ing to in­tro­duce the im­por­tance of agri­cul­ture and the ne­ces­si­ty of learn­ing out­side of the class­room to their school.

He said at the time she was a vol­un­tary leader, but now she is the Na­tion­al 4-H pres­i­dent. Balkissoon thanked her for in­tro­duc­ing him to 4-H and in­spir­ing him to pur­sue a ca­reer in agri­cul­ture.

Balkissoon’s fa­ther, Vi­jay, said that “Ajay, his four broth­ers and one of his sis­ters al­so at­tend­ed Todd’s Road RC Pri­ma­ry School” and were all in­volved in the 4-H Club at the school at the time. Balkissoon’s sis­ter Alyssa, 11, is the cur­rent pres­i­dent of the Sweet Hands 4-H club.

Balkissoon’s fa­ther is cur­rent­ly as­sist­ing the Sweet Hands 4-H Club with their gar­den.

He said that he was very proud of all of his chil­dren for their achieve­ments to date, for they are hard-work­ing, re­spon­si­ble and dis­ci­plined in­di­vid­u­als, and he sees them be­ing very suc­cess­ful in the near fu­ture. He said he has al­ways been en­cour­ag­ing them in their home gar­den, the rear­ing of chick­ens and even rab­bits in the past.

Balkissoon’s fa­ther is hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions with the Sweet Hands 4-H leader, Mr Kei­th, to have oth­er past stu­dents and oth­er stake­hold­ers get in­volved in do­ing an up­grade of the gar­den area short­ly, and to lift the stan­dards and lev­el of their 4-H Club.