An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The re­cent dev­as­ta­tion caused by Hur­ri­cane Beryl has set back the re­gion’s plan to re­duce its food im­port bill by 25 per cent next year.

This was re­vealed by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land, and Fish­eries act­ing deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, Den­ny Dipchans­ingh, in an in­ter­view with Busi­ness Guardian.

Un­veiled in 2022, the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Cari­com Agri-Food Sys­tems Strat­e­gy in the mem­ber states tar­gets re­duc­ing food iports by 25 per cent by 2025.

, Dipchans­ingh said al­though the com­mit­ment to this goal re­mains strong, the nat­ur­al dis­as­ter last month would have been a set back..  

“As the re­gion re­builds, the fo­cus is on putting sys­tems in place to en­sure re­silience with­in the agri­cul­tur­al in­dus­try.”

Re­cent­ly, Dipchan­sigh said an agri-in­sur­ance prod­uct was launched to pro­tect Vi­sion 25 by 2025 from its ma­jor threat of cli­mate change.  

This in­sur­ance prod­uct aims to:

- Pro­pel and pro­tect Vi­sion 25 by dri­ving risk trans­fer from the pub­lic sec­tor to the pri­vate sec­tor; 

- Pro­tect and sup­port re­gion­al small­hold­er farm­ers and fish­er­folk, with scal­a­bil­i­ty to in­clude larg­er op­er­a­tors;  

- Col­lab­o­rate with pub­lic sec­tor of­fi­cials and ex­perts to de­crease re­liance on the state over time;  

- Lever­age re­gion­al col­lec­tive pow­er to en­sure the best pric­ing in the glob­al rein­sur­ance mar­ket; and

- Uti­lize tech­nol­o­gy to min­i­mize the ad­min­is­tra­tive bur­den on the state while en­hanc­ing gov­er­nance and trans­paren­cy.

He not­ed that this in­sur­ance prod­uct will specif­i­cal­ly tar­get live­stock farm­ers, crop farm­ers, and fish­er­folk, pro­vid­ing them with the nec­es­sary pro­tec­tion to con­tin­ue their vi­tal work.

Back in Au­gust 2022, Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com com­mit­ted to re­duc­ing the Re­gion’s large food im­port bill by 25 per­cent  by 2025.

Dipchans­ingh out­lined the chal­lenges fac­ing the agri­cul­ture sec­tor are lim­it­ed ac­cess to fi­nanc­ing, an ag­ing farm­ing pop­u­la­tion, land tenure is­sues, and the im­pacts of cli­mate change.  

“De­spite these chal­lenges, the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture is ac­tive­ly work­ing to sup­port farm­ers through ini­tia­tives like train­ing pro­grammes, ac­cess to mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy, and poli­cies that fa­cil­i­tate eas­i­er ac­cess to land and cap­i­tal,” he said.

As to how the ef­fects of cli­mate change are be­ing han­dled, the act­ing deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary ex­plained that the min­istry is ad­dress­ing the im­pacts of cli­mate change on agri­cul­ture by of­fer­ing an agro-in­cen­tive grant of up to $100,000.  

This grant, he said, is de­signed to as­sist farm­ers in im­prov­ing their pro­duc­tive ca­pac­i­ty and in­tro­duc­ing new tech­nolo­gies and cli­mate-smart sys­tems.  

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the min­istry con­tin­ues to of­fer train­ing to farm­ers through our Ex­ten­sion Train­ing and In­for­ma­tion Ser­vices (ETIS) di­vi­sion, with sup­port from de­vel­op­ment part­ners such as the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­ga­ni­za­tion (FAO) and the In­ter-Amer­i­can In­sti­tute for Co­op­er­a­tion on Agri­cul­ture (IICA). These part­ners pro­vide crit­i­cal sup­port in im­ple­ment­ing sus­tain­able agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices and build­ing re­silience in the sec­tor,” he de­tailed.

2024 Agri Ex­po  

The Agri ex­po which opens on Fri­day and runs till Au­gust 18, promis­es to be big­ger and bet­ter.

Dipchans­ingh said the Agri Ex­po has been high­ly suc­cess­ful in achiev­ing its pri­ma­ry goals of fos­ter­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion, show­cas­ing the po­ten­tial of the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, and pro­vid­ing a plat­form for stake­hold­ers to con­nect and grow.  

Last year’s event at­tract­ed over 30,000 pa­trons over the three days, serv­ing as a key fo­rum for the ex­change of ideas and best agri­cul­ture prac­tices.

He high­light­ed that this year’s ex­po will fea­ture over 300 booth spaces, show­cas­ing more than 300 farm­ers and agri­cul­tur­al busi­ness­es over the three days.  

“In ad­di­tion, we have added sev­er­al agen­cies that will fea­ture mul­ti­ple ex­hibitors through­out the event, fur­ther in­creas­ing our par­tic­i­pa­tion num­bers be­yond what has been record­ed in pre­vi­ous years. This sig­nif­i­cant in­crease re­flects the strong in­ter­est from stake­hold­ers across the agri­cul­tur­al val­ue chain and the Ex­po’s role as a vi­tal plat­form for show­cas­ing in­no­va­tions, prod­ucts, and ser­vices re­lat­ed to agri­cul­ture,” he men­tioned.

Asked whether the min­istry is ex­pect­ing to get for­eign in­vestors fol­low­ing the Ex­po, Dipchans­ingh said while the pri­ma­ry fo­cus of the Ex­po is on fos­ter­ing lo­cal and re­gion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion, the min­istry has al­so se­cured on­go­ing sup­port from de­vel­op­ment part­ners in the form of project spon­sor­ships and train­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.  

These ef­forts, he said, are aimed at ad­dress­ing gaps iden­ti­fied dur­ing busi­ness-to-busi­ness meet­ings with farm­ers. While for­eign in­vest­ment is al­ways a goal, our fo­cus is on strength­en­ing these part­ner­ships and build­ing ca­pac­i­ty with­in the lo­cal agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor.

Farmer sees suc­cess at Ex­po

Al­pha Sen­non, the founder of WHY­FARMS, said  his booth fea­tured Ag­ri­man and Ag­ri­man Agriven­tures, which at­ten­dees weren’t fa­mil­iar with.

Sen­non said this caught the at­ten­tion of vis­it­ing Prime Min­is­ters and var­i­ous agri­cul­ture min­is­ters.  

“We re­ceived in­vi­ta­tions to vis­it oth­er coun­tries, and schools and teach­ers who at­tend­ed the ex­po in­vit­ed us to their in­sti­tu­tions through­out the year. This ex­po­sure sig­nif­i­cant­ly boost­ed our sales, par­tic­u­lar­ly of our com­ic books and Ag­ri­man callaloo packs. Over­all, it was a piv­otal mo­ment for us, al­low­ing our busi­ness to reach new heights, he an­nounced.

With the on­set of COVID-19, he not­ed that farm­ers were dri­ven in­to be­com­ing tech-savvy.

This shift Sen­non high­light­ed that it  sig­nif­i­cant­ly en­hanced how farm­ers con­duct­ed busi­ness, with a grow­ing re­liance on tech­nol­o­gy.  

To­day, he said, many farm­ers, es­pe­cial­ly younger ones, are us­ing on­line plat­forms to mar­ket, buy, and sell their pro­duce.

“The on­line plat­forms have been work­ing well for us. We uti­lize a web­site and so­cial me­dia plat­forms to mar­ket all of WHY­FARMS’ of­fer­ings. These dig­i­tal tools have al­lowed us to reach a wider au­di­ence and ef­fec­tive­ly pro­mote our prod­ucts and ser­vices.”

On dig­i­tal agri­cul­ture, he in­di­cat­ed that while it is grow­ing, it’s not yet ful­ly main­stream. “While some in­di­vid­u­als are us­ing dig­i­tal tools like pH me­tres, pumps, and timers, it doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean that their en­tire sys­tems are ful­ly dig­i­talised. How­ev­er, I can say that dig­i­tal adop­tion is steadi­ly in­creas­ing, with more peo­ple in­te­grat­ing tech­nol­o­gy in­to their farm­ing prac­tices one step at a time,” the farmer dis­closed.

Asked if he found there were enough grants ac­ces­si­ble for farm­ers, Sen­non said there can nev­er be enough grants avail­able for farm­ers, as many still ad­vo­cate for more fi­nan­cial sup­port.

Al­though there is the Agro-In­cen­tive Grant, he stressed that it of­ten falls short for many be­cause a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge is that some farm­ers lack the tech­ni­cal skills need­ed to pre­pare pro­pos­als and bud­gets, es­pe­cial­ly those who are un­e­d­u­cat­ed and may not have the skill sets to pre­pare such doc­u­ments.  

This gap makes it chal­leng­ing for them to ac­cess the avail­able grants, high­light­ing the need for more sup­port in this area.

As it per­tains to ex­port­ing Sen­non said WHY­FARMS cur­rent­ly ex­ports to the USA, Cana­da, and the Unit­ed King­dom and has be­gun ex­pand­ing its reach in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.