RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA & RISHARD KHAN

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Now that Kaz­im Ho­sein is in charge of the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry, stake­hold­ers are ea­ger to meet to share ideas on how to pro­ceed with tack­ling chal­lenges in food se­cu­ri­ty.

For­mer pres­i­dent of the Rice Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion David Pa­ponette said he want­ed the re­de­vel­op­ment of the na­tion­al rice in­dus­try in T&T.

"I would like to con­grat­u­late the new Min­is­ter on his ap­point­ment. I hope that it brings a fresh per­spec­tive on agri­cul­ture de­vel­op­ment and pol­i­cy. I hope we can have a friend­ly and co­he­sive re­la­tion­ship with the new Min­is­ter which is need­ed now," Pa­ponette said.

Agri­cul­ture econ­o­mist Omar­dath Ma­haraj said the loom­ing food cri­sis which can af­fect 18 mil­lion Caribbean peo­ple, need­ed ur­gent at­ten­tion now.

"We are food-de­pen­dent and the re­cent state­ment by Ramb­harat that we will man­age be­cause we man­aged dur­ing the pan­dem­ic was dis­re­spect­ful to the re­al­i­ty that many of us face as par­ents while we deal with ris­ing food prices and oth­er chal­lenges," Ma­haraj said. He not­ed that Ho­sein must work with stake­hold­ers now to de­vel­op a com­pre­hen­sive food pol­i­cy.

Mean­while, the pres­i­dent of the T&T Agri­cul­ture So­ci­ety Dar­ryl Ram­per­sad said he hoped to have a "brighter fu­ture" with Ho­sein, not­ing that Ramb­harat had failed to meet and treat with them when he was the Min­is­ter. 

He ex­pressed op­ti­mism that Ho­sein's ex­pe­ri­ence un­der his pre­vi­ous port­fo­lio as Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment will bode well for the in­dus­try.

"He will be able to ad­dress some of the is­sues that are tak­ing place in agri­cul­ture, es­pe­cial­ly in terms of in­fra­struc­tur­al work that is nec­es­sary for the agri­cul­ture sec­tor right now in terms of drainage, pro­vid­ing of ponds and these things, pro­vid­ing of ac­cess roads," Ram­per­sad said.

"I know that he is an ex­pert in there. I know that he is no stranger of course and he would lend great as­sis­tance to the agri­cul­ture min­istry."

He said the so­ci­ety was dis­ap­point­ed with Ramb­harat's tenure, be­liev­ing the sec­tor did not reap the ben­e­fits it should have.

"Ramb­harat had a lot of mon­ey- over 500 mil­lion and 300 mil­lion to in­vest in agri­cul­ture and we didn't see it hap­pen­ing down to the dai­ly pro­duc­ers. We didn't see them ben­e­fit­ting from that," he said.

In Wednes­day's reshuf­fle, Nigel de Fre­itas was ap­point­ed as Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Lands and Fish­eries with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Lands.

For­mer Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture un­der the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, De­vant Ma­haraj con­grat­u­lat­ed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for his "bril­liant" move of plac­ing Ho­sein at the helm of the min­istry.

"I am con­fi­dent that Min­is­ter Ho­sein has the all too im­por­tant peo­ple skills com­pli­ment­ed with lead­er­ship abil­i­ty to make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in the Min­istry. I am pos­i­tive that the na­tion can ex­pect a trans­for­ma­tion of the Min­istry with­in a short time un­der Min­is­ter Ho­sein," he said.

"Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein is the per­fect fit for the Min­istry giv­en the ris­ing food prices, food in­fla­tion, glob­al sup­ply chain chal­lenges to name a few."

The Aranguez Unit­ed Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion al­so ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to Ho­sein on the ap­point­ment.

"We look for­ward to a proac­tive and hands-on Min­is­ter. The ques­tion of land tenure for farm­ers as well as oth­er in­fra­struc­ture and mar­ket­ing of goods con­tin­ue to plague farm­ers," its pres­i­dent Pun­dit Satyanand Ma­haraj said. 

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