Carisa Lee

Two hun­dred peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in agri­cul­ture are be­ing giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­pand and be­come cer­ti­fied in the field af­ter sign­ing up for the two-year Gov­ern­ment-fund­ed Youth Agri­cul­tur­al Home­stead Pro­gramme (YAHP).

The group, com­pris­ing peo­ple be­tween the ages of 18 and 35, be­came the first co­hort to do so and was se­lect­ed out of 1,600 ap­pli­cants.

They at­tend­ed the ori­en­ta­tion at the Gov­ern­ment Cam­pus Plaza in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day.

Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment Fos­ter Cum­mings said the YAHP was es­tab­lished es­pe­cial­ly for them and not on­ly to pro­vide em­ploy­ment.

“To pros­per through agri-en­tre­pre­neur­ship, to build wealth and to have hous­ing se­cu­ri­ty,” Cum­mings said.

Cum­mings re­vealed that the ap­pli­cants who com­plete the pro­gramme will ben­e­fit from a starter home on two acres of fer­tile land “to fa­cil­i­tate the cul­ti­va­tion of a holis­ti­cal­ly sus­tain­able lifestyle for your gen­er­a­tions so that you live and farm on the same land.”

Year one of the pro­gramme is aimed at the­o­ret­i­cal learn­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go and year two will be prac­ti­cal.

The $8,000 tu­ition will al­so be cov­ered by the Gov­ern­ment.

“It’s not a hit and miss arrange­ment, we not just giv­ing you land and say go plant, you are get­ting the train­ing to em­pow­er you to get on these lands in an in­formed po­si­tion so that you will be 21st-cen­tu­ry farmer,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to Cum­mings, the lo­ca­tion of the lands are across the coun­try and in year two, the Land Set­tle­ment Agency will fa­cil­i­tate the de­vel­op­ment and in­fra­struc­ture of the lands.

“Lo­cat­ed at Fyz­abad, Chatham, Kendall in Pa­lo Seco, La Glo­ria in New Grant in the first phase, in the sec­ond phase Va­len­cia, Gran Cou­va, Pointe-a-Pierre, Todd’s Road, Lopinot and San­ta Cruz,” he said.

Cum­mings said the Gov­ern­ment will hold the par­tic­i­pants’ hands every step of the way but urged the youths to at­tend class­es and be at­ten­tive.

He said their knowl­edge can ben­e­fit more than just them.

“We hope to see you con­tribute to rur­al trans­for­ma­tion, agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion and food se­cu­ri­ty, as well as cli­mate change and en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” he said.

Ap­pli­cant Regi­na Chase, who said she had been in­ter­est­ed in en­tre­pre­neur­ship and agri­cul­ture from the mo­ment she start­ed sell­ing at the mar­ket at the age of 10, said she’s ready.

“My goal af­ter this course, up­on suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion, is to ex­tend my ser­vices to Cari­com, build self-sus­tain­abil­i­ty, cre­ate job op­por­tu­ni­ty, em­ploy­ment for the youth com­ing up,” she said.

Min­is­ter Cum­mings en­cour­aged the 1,400 failed ap­pli­cants to try again next year.

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