Na­tion­al Award re­cip­i­ent Ramdeo Boon­doo is urg­ing the pri­vate sec­tor to part­ner with young peo­ple to boost food pro­duc­tion.

Boodoon, 74, who re­ceived the Cha­co­nia Gold Medal for his con­tri­bu­tion to­wards the de­vel­op­ment of Agri­cul­ture in T&T, made the com­ment while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at a func­tion at the Palmiste Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School in Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas, yes­ter­day.

Hav­ing been be­stowed with the Cha­co­nia Gold at the re­cent Na­tion­al Awards Cer­e­mo­ny, Boon­doo was in­vit­ed by the school’s man­age­ment to speak to the pupils since he grew up in the com­mu­ni­ty.

He said one of his ob­jec­tives is to en­cour­age food pro­duc­tion among young peo­ple by speak­ing with them di­rect­ly and ex­plain­ing the ben­e­fits of the agri­cul­ture in­dus­try.

He said, “I want the pri­vate sec­tor to get on board, the pri­vate sec­tor will lead to more con­ti­nu­ity with what is hap­pen­ing. There is a fu­ture in agri­cul­ture, you have to eat.

“I have been say­ing for the last 40-50 years that we need to grow food that we can con­sume that be­longs to us. How can we buy food if we can­not get it? We have to grow food, I am con­fi­dent that we can grow 50 per cent of the food that we con­sume.”

He al­so rub­bished sug­ges­tions that T&T could not grow the food it needs.

“We need to fo­cus on T&T, we have that ca­pa­bil­i­ty. There is a need to fo­cus on the sta­ples, the in­dige­nous veg­eta­bles and fruits. The Gros Michel ba­nana can be grown lo­cal­ly but it is im­port­ed. We can sub­sti­tute up to 30 per cent of wheat flour with cas­sa­va flour.”

He said agri­cul­ture has al­ways got­ten a raw deal in T&T, so many youths are dis­cour­aged from farm­ing.

”Past ad­min­is­tra­tions and past peo­ple have treat­ed agri­cul­ture as the bas­tard child, I make no apolo­gies, that is the truth. I am the first per­son in agri­cul­ture to get a na­tion­al award.”

Boon­doo has nev­er at­tend­ed high school but was giv­en a chance to lec­ture on the prac­ti­cal as­pect of agri­cul­ture at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies be­cause of his wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence. He has al­so writ­ten sev­er­al doc­u­ments on root and tu­ber pro­duc­tion. — Shas­tri Boodan