RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Al­though the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor saw a slight re­duc­tion in fund­ing to $1.13 bil­lion, down from $1.183 bil­lion last year, stake­hold­ers re­main op­ti­mistic that the gov­ern­ment’s re­newed fo­cus on tech­nol­o­gy, in­no­va­tion, and food se­cu­ri­ty could trans­form lo­cal farm­ing and re­duce T&T’s de­pen­dence on im­ports.

Agron­o­mist Akanath Singh of Plant Di­ag­nos­tic Clin­ic wel­comed the bud­get’s em­pha­sis on mod­ernising agri­cul­ture. He said the in­tro­duc­tion of smart tech­nol­o­gy and AI-dri­ven sys­tems is ex­act­ly what the sec­tor needs to move for­ward.

“Smart tech­nol­o­gy to boost farm­ing is what is need­ed at this time,” Singh said. “The move to­wards AI and cli­mate-smart agri­cul­ture—in­clud­ing drones, sen­sors, crop dis­ease de­tec­tion apps, and au­to­mat­ed ir­ri­ga­tion sys­tems—will help farm­ers adapt to our chang­ing cli­mate.”

Singh not­ed that lo­cal farm­ers have suf­fered sig­nif­i­cant crop loss­es due to cli­mate change and glob­al warm­ing, and that tech­nol­o­gy could help them bet­ter pre­pare for fu­ture chal­lenges.

“Over­all, this is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­crease lo­cal food pro­duc­tion in a more or­gan­ic and sus­tain­able way,” he said. “It could al­so help re­duce lo­cal food prices.”

Dur­ing his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo out­lined a $1.13 bil­lion plan to mod­ernise agri­cul­ture, pro­mote ex­ports, and cut the na­tion­al food im­port bill by 25 per cent by 2030.

Tan­coo de­scribed the ini­tia­tive as part of a “com­pre­hen­sive, peo­ple-cen­tred growth agen­da” link­ing agri­cul­ture with man­u­fac­tur­ing, trade, and ed­u­ca­tion to strength­en eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and food se­cu­ri­ty.

“Agri­cul­ture is cen­tral to di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and food se­cu­ri­ty,” he said. “It cur­rent­ly con­tributes less than one per cent of GDP —a strate­gic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty we must re­verse. We will align with Cari­com’s ‘25 by 2025’ ini­tia­tive to re­duce food im­ports by at least 25 per cent by 2030 while pro­mot­ing agro-ex­ports.”

Among the mea­sures, Tan­coo an­nounced a three-year Pri­or­i­ty Com­modi­ties Pro­gramme for 15 high-de­mand prod­ucts, fo­cus­ing an­nu­al­ly on three crops and one live­stock cat­e­go­ry. The gov­ern­ment will al­so pri­ori­tise cli­mate-re­silient farm­ing, crop in­sur­ance, green­house in­cen­tives, and wa­ter-har­vest­ing sys­tems to bet­ter pro­tect farm­ers from cli­mate shocks.

“Our ini­tia­tive to re­duce food im­ports while pro­mot­ing agro-ex­ports is a three-year pri­or­i­ty,” he said. “We are in­te­grat­ing agri­cul­ture in­to schools and pro­mot­ing youth en­tre­pre­neur­ship through a Youth Agri­cul­tur­al Fund.”

Of the to­tal al­lo­ca­tion, $793.7 mil­lion will be in­vest­ed in in­fra­struc­ture, ir­ri­ga­tion, fish­eries, land de­vel­op­ment, and agri-tech ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing Smart Agri­cul­ture and AI to in­crease ef­fi­cien­cy and self-suf­fi­cien­cy.

“Our goal is to reach $1 bil­lion in agri­cul­tur­al ex­ports over the next fis­cal year,” Tan­coo said, high­light­ing fine-flavour co­coa, Moru­ga pep­per, and aqua­cul­ture as ar­eas with strong ex­port po­ten­tial.

The gov­ern­ment will al­so dis­trib­ute long-promised land leas­es to for­mer Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed work­ers and de­vel­op new res­i­den­tial and agri­cul­tur­al lots at Ca­roni and Or­ange Grove.

Tan­coo em­pha­sised that the suc­cess of the mod­erni­sa­tion plan de­pends on part­ner­ship and col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“We can­not build growth with­out part­ner­ship,” he said. “Agri­cul­ture, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and trade are part of the same ecosys­tem. To­geth­er, they will dri­ve di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, strength­en our econ­o­my, and make Trinidad and To­ba­go food-se­cure by 2030.”

Sup­port­ing lo­cal pro­duc­ers

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter al­so un­veiled plans for an Ex­port Acad­e­my in part­ner­ship with the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce and the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) to train SMEs in trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion, fi­nanc­ing, e-com­merce, and glob­al mar­ket­ing.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the gov­ern­ment will launch a ‘Buy Lo­cal, Build Trin­ba­go’ cam­paign to sup­port lo­cal pro­duc­ers while ad­vanc­ing par­tial-scope trade agree­ments with In­dia and West Africa, grant­i­ng du­ty-free ac­cess for over 260 lo­cal prod­ucts with­in three years.

While the mea­sures were large­ly wel­comed, home gar­den­er Michelle For­tune said she had hoped for a larg­er over­all al­lo­ca­tion for agri­cul­ture.

“I was ex­pect­ing more monies al­lo­cat­ed for agri­cul­ture,” she said. “But I see that VAT was re­moved from agri-ma­chin­ery.”

Still, she praised the bud­get’s em­pha­sis on sus­tain­able prac­tices.

“I sup­port the use of bio-stim­u­lants and a re­duc­tion of chem­i­cals in food,” For­tune added.