Kaz­im Ho­sein, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries yes­ter­day dis­trib­uted over $3 mil­lion in grants to thir­ty-one (31) farm­ers as part of Cy­cle 7 of the Agri­cul­tur­al Fi­nance Sup­port Pro­gramme (AgroIn­cen­tive Grant) at the Min­istry’s Head Of­fice in Ch­agua­nas.

In a me­dia re­lease, the Min­istry said the Agro-In­cen­tive Grant is a piv­otal com­po­nent of the Min­istry’s vi­sion for a mod­ern, com­pet­i­tive, and sus­tain­able agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor.

” It sym­bol­izes the Min­istry’s com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing in­no­va­tion, re­silience, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty with­in the agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty.”

In his ad­dress, Min­is­ter Ho­sein em­pha­sized the sig­nif­i­cance of this ini­tia­tive, stat­ing, “Through­out our pro­ceed­ings to­day, you will all rec­og­nize that the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries is not just fund­ing projects. We are in­vest­ing in the po­ten­tial of our land, the in­ge­nu­ity of our peo­ple, and the health of our na­tion.”

The Min­is­ter fur­ther high­light­ed the broad­er eco­nom­ic im­pli­ca­tions of the grant, not­ing that it ex­tends far be­yond im­me­di­ate fi­nan­cial sup­port.

“By fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of in­no­va­tion and ef­fi­cien­cy, we are paving the way for Trinidad and To­ba­go to be­come a leader in the Caribbean’s agro-in­dus­try. This ini­tia­tive is a cor­ner­stone in our ef­forts to achieve food se­cu­ri­ty, re­duce our im­port bill, and open new av­enues for ex­port,” he added.

The 31 grant re­cip­i­ents rep­re­sent a di­verse cross-sec­tion of the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, in­clud­ing small-scale farm­ers and large agribusi­ness­es.

The funds will be used for var­i­ous in­no­v­a­tive projects such as state-of-the-art ir­ri­ga­tion sys­tems, hy­dro­pon­ic sys­tems, so­lar pan­el in­stal­la­tions, farm im­prove­ments to meet Good Agri­cul­tur­al Prac­tices (GAP) stan­dards, in­vest­ments in new breed­ing stock for live­stock, and ad­vanced fish­ing equip­ment.