SHAS­TRI BOODAN

A $1 mil­lion agro-pro­cess­ing fa­cil­i­ty aimed at boost­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s food in­dus­try was opened on Sat­ur­day at Brechin Cas­tle, Cou­va.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of­fi­cial­ly opened the Brechin Cas­tle Agro Pro­cess­ing Fa­cil­i­ty and said the project marked a new phase for agri­cul­ture in the coun­try.

She said the for­mer pack­ing house had been con­vert­ed in­to a mod­ern agro-pro­cess­ing fa­cil­i­ty af­ter more than 11 years. She said the fa­cil­i­ty is equipped with three au­to­mat­ed stain­less steel pro­cess­ing lines ca­pa­ble of con­vert­ing lo­cal­ly grown root crops, veg­eta­bles and fruits in­to val­ue-added prod­ucts for ex­port mar­kets.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the prod­ucts would meet in­ter­na­tion­al food safe­ty and qual­i­ty stan­dards while cre­at­ing greater com­mer­cial val­ue for lo­cal pro­duce.

“This is agri­cul­ture dri­ven not on­ly by cul­ti­va­tion, but al­so by pro­cess­ing, brand­ing, ex­ports and in­no­va­tion,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She added that the fa­cil­i­ty would strength­en food se­cu­ri­ty, re­duce de­pen­dence on food im­ports and help cre­ate a more re­silient econ­o­my.

She added that re­cent glob­al dis­rup­tions high­light­ed the im­por­tance of food se­cu­ri­ty and en­cour­aged younger peo­ple to view agri­cul­ture as an in­dus­try with long-term op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so thanked In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di and the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia for pro­vid­ing the equip­ment used at the fa­cil­i­ty.

“When we cam­paigned in Cou­va and else­where in Trinidad last year, we promised the peo­ple we would de­liv­er, and we be­gan that de­liv­ery. Promise made, promise kept,” she said.

In­dia’s Min­is­ter of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar said the project would help Namde­v­co source agro-com­modi­ties from farm­ers, process and store them, and ex­pand lo­cal and ex­port mar­kets.

He said the ini­tia­tive would help farm­ers se­cure bet­ter prices while con­sumers would ben­e­fit from im­proved prod­ucts.

Jais­hankar al­so point­ed to In­dia’s Farmer Pro­duc­er Or­gan­i­sa­tions (FPOs), which help farm­ers mar­ket pro­duce on a larg­er scale, in­crease in­comes and cre­ate em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple.

He said In­dia now has about 15,000 FPO prod­ucts avail­able on on­line plat­forms and ex­pressed hope that sim­i­lar ini­tia­tives could ex­pand in Trinidad and To­ba­go.