Shas­tri Boodan

$1 mil­lion in agro-pro­cess­ing equip­ment is be­ing used to boost the lo­cal food in­dus­try. On Sat­ur­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar opened the Brechin Cas­tle Agro-Pro­cess­ing Fa­cil­i­ty in Cou­va.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told the gath­er­ing that Brechin Cas­tle has be­come part of a new agri­cul­tur­al fu­ture for Trinidad and To­ba­go. She said: “Af­ter more than 11 years, the for­mer pack­ing house has been trans­formed in­to a mod­ern agro-pro­cess­ing fa­cil­i­ty equipped with three ful­ly au­to­mat­ed stain­less steel pro­cess­ing lines. It can now turn lo­cal­ly cul­ti­vat­ed root crops, veg­eta­bles, and fruits in­to val­ue-added, ex­port-ready prod­ucts that meet in­ter­na­tion­al food safe­ty and qual­i­ty stan­dards.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said prod­ucts made from lo­cal pro­duce can now car­ry greater com­mer­cial val­ue and stronger re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket po­ten­tial. “This is agri­cul­ture dri­ven not on­ly by cul­ti­va­tion, but al­so by pro­cess­ing, brand­ing, ex­ports, and in­no­va­tion. This fa­cil­i­ty al­so strength­ens food se­cu­ri­ty, re­duces de­pen­dence on food im­ports, and helps build a more re­silient econ­o­my.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said re­cent glob­al dis­rup­tions serve as a re­minder that food se­cu­ri­ty is na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. “It al­so tells our young peo­ple that agri­cul­ture is not yes­ter­day's work, but one of the great in­dus­tries of the fu­ture.” Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pressed thanks to In­dia’s Prime Min­is­ter Shri Naren­dra Mo­di Ji and to the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of In­dia for the equip­ment.

She said: “When we cam­paigned in these lands, here in Cou­va and else­where in Trinidad last year, we said to you that we would de­liv­er cer­tain things to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and we be­gan that de­liv­ery, and we say to you each time, promise made, promise kept. To­day, the promise from In­dia, In­dia has kept their promise. Thank you, In­dia, to your gov­ern­ment and your peo­ple. I thank you all very much.”

Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar, In­dia’s Min­is­ter of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs, said he was con­fi­dent that this project would help NAMDE­V­CO source agro-com­modi­ties in bulk from farm­ers, process them, store them for sup­ply­ing lo­cal­ly, and pro­mote ex­ports. “We will see farm­ers get­ting bet­ter prices. What we will see is the con­sumer get­ting bet­ter prod­ucts. And not least, what we will see is the econ­o­my, the mar­ket, flour­ish.”

He said in In­dia, or­gan­i­sa­tions called Farmer Pro­duc­er Or­gan­i­sa­tions (FPOs) are de­liv­er­ing prod­ucts to every house­hold and play­ing a vi­tal role in in­creas­ing farmer in­comes and cre­at­ing em­ploy­ment among youth. “These FPOs help farm­ers take their pro­duce to the mar­ket and do it at scale. And to pro­mote food pro­cess­ing sec­tors, there­by do­ing val­ue ad­di­tion to what the farm­ers nor­mal­ly do.”

He said the strength of these FPOs can be gauged from the fact that there are 15,000 prod­ucts avail­able on on­line plat­forms.

“It is of course our sin­cere hope that once this gets off the ground, there is room for many more to come.”

The project start­ed in 2014 un­der the PP regime and was dis­con­tin­ued un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. The fa­cil­i­ty was left aban­doned. The last time agro-pro­cess­ing was done at Brechin Cas­tle was in 2003, the fi­nal year Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed pro­duced sug­ar at the site.