The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) Fac­ul­ty of Food and Agri­cul­ture has launched the 2023 edi­tion of the TechA­gri Ex­po, which seeks to build ca­pac­i­ty with­in the lo­cal agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, by bring­ing in­no­va­tion and tech­nol­o­gy to the fore­front.

This year, the Fac­ul­ty of Food and Agri­cul­ture part­nered with the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, to help em­pha­size the im­por­tance of youth in the de­vel­op­ment of a sus­tain­able fu­ture in agri­cul­ture. In de­liv­er­ing his ad­dress to spe­cial in­vi­tees at Lec­ture The­atre A, Dud­ley Hug­gins Build­ing (UWI), Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, Fos­ter Cum­mings, praised the ini­tia­tive and spoke of its im­por­tance to “em­pow­er­ing youth en­tre­pre­neur­ship through agri­cul­tur­al tech­nol­o­gy”.

Cum­mings fur­ther high­light­ed what has been a suc­cess­ful year for the na­tion’s youth in the de­vel­op­ment of the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor in Trinidad and To­ba­go, with the ef­fec­tive roll­out of the Youth Agri­cul­tur­al Home­stead Pro­gramme (YAHP), Youth Agri­cul­tur­al Shade House Project and the Youth Aqua­cul­ture Project. The Min­is­ter al­so praised lo­cal stake­hold­ers such as the Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Mar­ket­ing De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (NAMDE­V­CO) and the Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (NED­CO), for their con­tin­ued com­mit­ment in sup­port­ing these and oth­er ini­tia­tives, which aim to show­case the en­tre­pre­neur­ial and in­no­v­a­tive spir­it of our na­tion’s youth.