Underutilised, under-explored and negatively stereotyped, was how agricultural economist Dr Lorraine Waldropt-Ferguson described the sector while speaking at a post-budget discussion held by the T&T Chamber on Tuesday.
She also emphasised agriculture must be business-led and not solely dependent on Government to grow and called on the business community to invest and ensure agriculture is not the proverbial “ black sheep.”
“As a business community, we must build the business model to lead the way instead of Government leading,” Waldropt-Ferguson said.
Noting that attention is focused on the social and research aspect of agriculture, Waldropt-Ferguson advised that if not treated as a business, it will not grow.
“Instead of the farmers going on television and protesting, probably it is time the business community takes the lead and clamour for change, in terms of all the long process and how the money is allocated in terms of the budget,” she said.
According to Waldropt-Ferguson if viewed differently, agriculture represents “an ocean of opportunity.”
During his 2022/2023 budget presentation, Finance Minister Colm Imbert allocated $1.330 billion to the sector, $81 million more than last year.
Agriculture received $1.249 billion in 2021, $51 million more than the $1.198 billion allotted the year before.
Imbert also said a key component of the Government’s new strategy is to encourage young people to go back into agriculture.
Waldropt-Ferguson admitted there are weaknesses in the sector including low domestic food production, low agricultural exports, unavailability of labour and “lack-lustre attitude” towards agriculture.
She posited that like in any business there are risks in agriculture and are often deemed difficult to solve.
Conversely she said there are many advantages like having the best cocoa in the world among and a cheap source of energy for agro-processing.
“We have to change the lens through which we watch agriculture because we have competitive advantages in terms of these commodities but we also have intellectual capacity.
“We are losing these great minds to other countries throughout the world; Australia, certain Asian countries, to the US because agriculture is more developed there so they will go to solve their problems but they don’t solve ours here,” Waldropt-Ferguson explained.
Additionally, she said the reason T&T is deficient in developing its products with competitive advantage is simply due to low interest in the sector.
Using honey as an example Waldropt-Ferguson explained, “A lot of our apiaries people, they do it as a hobby and then there are people doing it as a part-time business. But the reason why we cannot really exploit the full potential of honey is because we don’t have a honey-testing site in T&T.”
She said to export, testing is critical in ensuring the quality meets international standards.
According to Waldropt-Ferguson there is no honey-testing site because there’s lack of interest.
“We don’t have people clamouring for that. We have more or less the focus on the short-crop sector but at the end of the day there are business opportunities worth exploring in the sector,” she maintained.
Additionally, the sector must also be viewed as one holistic system encompassing expertise for different areas to ensure guided decisions are made.
“It’s models we are trying to build. Why not adopt this approach to agriculture? Decision support for instance. There are maps available throughout T&T with soil types..Do some soil tests, see exactly what crops can be planted in what regions of the country. See what access roads are available. We have this information ,” Waldropt-Ferguson suggested.
She said some of the most fertile lands are in the country’s northern coast however, there’s no accessibility.
According to Waldropt-Ferguson the reason why the agricultural models fail is because neither the proper thought processes nor the relevant information are properly examined, such as environmental and technical feasibility.
Calling for greater stakeholder efforts Waldropt-Ferguson said many strides can be made in research and development.
“There are great roles which can be played by research institutions. We have two universities and the University of the West Indies, St Augustine started as the school of agriculture. ..What about the partnerships between corporate, Government and institution?” Waldropt-Ferguson asked.
Noting there are many young graduates offering “beautiful models” for agriculture, she said these however, cannot work.
This is because there’s a disconnect between the “actual farm or the actual agricultural scenario and the research proposal....We need to encourage more of these partnerships. Let’s say you all invest in 5000 acres of land, why not engage the university. Let them do projects, models let them work.Use your business scenarios which are the real scenarios to do all the experimentation with,” Waldropt-Ferguson told the audience comprising various business arms.
On a global scale she said there’s a climate smart approach which continues to gain a lot of traction from large companies.
She explained research on climate change is conducted on the actual farm, for instance.
T&T Chamber President Charles Pashley also noted that agriculture has unfortunately been the “black sheep” of national budgets.
“Even now, agriculture received almost the same as last year in the budget; the second lowest vote overall. But we have been feeling the effects of inflation linked global disruptions to supply chains, and the issue of food security is suddenly looming large in the T&T and the region...Caricom has set a target of a 25 per cent increase in agricultural production by 2025, but it is already acknowledged that we need to do much more,’’ Pashley explained.
