SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

In Plum Mi­tan, the once-promis­ing Marp­er Farm, known for its prop­a­ga­tion ini­tia­tives, is fac­ing a de­cline.

Af­ter a 2012 re­vival that pro­duced 300,000 plants, which cre­at­ed a two-year On-the-Job Train­ing (OJT) pro­gramme for 40 res­i­dents in the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty, the farm, which falls un­der the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, has seen its plant pro­duc­tion, rang­ing from fruits, co­conuts, cit­rus, av­o­ca­dos, cashews and bread­fruit, take a nose­dive.

The pro­gramme, which bol­stered jobs in the agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty, was dis­con­tin­ued in 2017, cre­at­ing a rip­ple ef­fect.

When the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed the farm on Tues­day, on­ly a hand­ful of plants were seen un­der its nine prop­a­ga­tion sheds, two of which have glass roofs.

The sur­round­ings al­so showed signs of ne­glect, with over­grown grass and thick veg­e­ta­tion.

One of the prop­a­ga­tion sheds was on the brink of col­lapse be­cause of its rot­ted wood­en beams.

Even the un­paved Isidore Road lead­ing to the farm is in a de­plorable state.

The sleepy agri­cul­tur­al vil­lage, sit­u­at­ed be­tween Biche and Rio Claro, is an agri­cul­tur­al food bas­ket which pro­duces fruits, short-term crops, co­conuts and a va­ri­ety of root crops.

In this com­mu­ni­ty of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,000 res­i­dents, rough­ly 400 are ac­tive farm­ers.

Plum Mi­tan res­i­dent Cyl­lan Maxime, one of the OJTs who worked on the farm, said it pains his heart to see what Marp­er Farm has been re­duced to.

“This is not how Marp­er Farm was. It was a pro­duc­tive farm,” Maxime re­called.

The farm has a long and deep his­to­ry.

In 1993, the farm’s prop­a­ga­tion sta­tion, which pro­duced the best va­ri­ety of cit­rus and fruit plants on its 100 acres of land, shut its doors due to a lack of prof­it.

Staff at the farm were al­so re­duced by 60 per cent, with the few re­main­ing work­ers main­tain­ing tree crops and its ex­pan­sive com­pound.

On­ly a co­coa germplasm unit was kept op­er­a­tional to con­tin­ue the work of the Co­coa Re­search Unit at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine cam­pus.

In 2012, the farm was re­opened fol­low­ing a $3.5 mil­lion in­vest­ment un­der then-agri­cul­ture min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj to pro­duce high-qual­i­ty plant­i­ng ma­te­r­i­al, re­duce the coun­try’s grow­ing food im­port bill and en­sure food se­cu­ri­ty.

Sheds and wa­ter tanks were in­stalled.

The min­istry al­so bought agri­cul­tur­al equip­ment and erect­ed a fence.

A two-year OJT pro­gramme was of­fered to Plum Mi­tan res­i­dents to hone their skills in bud­ding and graft­ing and get the project off the ground.

In the first year of the pro­gramme, Maxime said the OJTs pro­duced 150,000 plants, ex­ceed­ing their ex­pec­ta­tions.

By the sec­ond year, they dou­bled pro­duc­tion, sup­ply­ing the St Au­gus­tine Nurs­eries at Farm Road, St Joseph and La Re­union Prop­a­ga­tion Sta­tion in Cen­teno with a va­ri­ety of nurs­ery plants for farm­ers and house­holds liv­ing in the north-east and south-east of Trinidad.

The OJTs, many of whom were sin­gle par­ents, school dropouts and di­rec­tion­less youths, were paid $3,600 a month.

Maxime said when the OJT pro­gramme end­ed, ca­su­al work­ers were hired for three-month pe­ri­ods to main­tain pro­duc­tion.

By 2017, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion stopped em­ploy­ing tem­po­rary work­ers.

This led to a grad­ual re­gres­sion.

Maxime said even staff mem­bers at the farm who re­tired were nev­er re­placed, stat­ing the work­force got small­er and pro­duc­tion de­clined.

“You can’t talk about boost­ing agri­cul­ture and shut down a pro­gramme that fa­cil­i­tates agri­cul­ture,” he said.

He said this was a back­ward step by the PNM.

Rip­ple ef­fect

Maxime said his hopes were lift­ed when the UNC promised in its 2025 man­i­festo to ad­dress the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor that had been ne­glect­ed and dev­as­tat­ed over the years.

The man­i­festo al­so pledged that every young per­son un­der 25 would be of­fered a job, train­ing or in­tern­ship with­in six months of leav­ing school.

Against this back­drop, Maxime, 44, said he vot­ed for the par­ty. But he said he has re­grets.

With the clo­sure of the Cepep and URP pro­grammes last year, Maxime said, un­em­ploy­ment wors­ened.

“They (UNC) are not work­ing for the youths. If you are in­to youths and you be­lieve in the youths, as you stat­ed in your man­i­festo, I am hold­ing them to ran­som for the things they say. You can’t say when UNC wins, every­body wins. I am feel­ing like a los­er,” said Maxime, who works as a se­cu­ri­ty guard.

In hind­sight, Maxime said, he should have sup­port­ed the PNM.

Al­most 17 months since the UNC was elect­ed in­to of­fice, Maxime claimed Plum Mi­tan was cry­ing out for at­ten­tion.

“We have not seen any help come our way. There are par­tic­u­lar peo­ple who are be­ing favoured over some of us be­cause we speak out against it. I am one who speak out against it. So right now, I am on a black­list.”

Vil­lager Ram­raj Sama­roo said Marp­er Farm, which was saved from Death Row 14 years ago, has “fall­en like a land­slide.”

Sama­roo worked on the farm as a dri­ver.

“When I went back to Marp­er re­cent­ly and saw the con­di­tion we left there in… it’s not nice to talk about at all.”

Farmer Garvin Bobb said that while the OJT pro­gramme was ben­e­fi­cial to many, he felt some of the youths in the com­mu­ni­ty were lazy.

A stone’s throw away from the farm, res­i­dents said the Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of T&T closed a zoo dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, which was a hub for eco-tourism.

The an­i­mals were re­lo­cat­ed to the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo in Port-of-Spain.

The zoo, he said, pro­vid­ed work for a few res­i­dents.

At Block One, four miles away, farm­ers al­so voiced dis­plea­sure over four of six pumps, housed at two lo­ca­tions, which have been non-func­tion­al for months.

Three of the pumps are lo­cat­ed at Road No 4.

An ir­ri­ga­tion pump, which the farm­ers used to siphon wa­ter from wa­ter­cours­es dur­ing the harsh dry sea­son to wet their crops, is al­so out of or­der.

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture in­stalled the pumps to han­dle two dif­fer­ent sea­son­al needs.

The six pumps chan­nel flood­wa­ters in­to the Nar­i­va and Cross Line Rivers dur­ing the rainy sea­son.

Farmer Lochan George said that when­ev­er there is a heavy down­pour, rag­ing wa­ters from Navet, Charu­ma and Biche would gush in­to their farms and de­stroy their crops.

The wa­ter would some­times rise as high as four feet, mak­ing roads im­pass­able.

As a re­sult, they have suf­fered sig­nif­i­cant loss­es many times.

To claim flood re­lief com­pen­sa­tion, George said a farmer must have a badge, which many don’t pos­sess.

“If you don’t have a badge, you can’t claim for any­thing… It’s just loss­es af­ter loss­es we have to face with­out get­ting back a cent.”

Farmer Ku­mar Sa­roop said the Cross Line Riv­er, which has a thick lay­er of veg­e­ta­tion grow­ing on its sur­face, has not been cleaned in years, while the Nar­i­va Riv­er needs dredg­ing.

He de­scribed the fail­ure to clean and clear the rivers as “bad man­age­ment.”

As farm­ers bat­tle ex­ces­sive heat in the rainy sea­son, Sa­roop ad­mit­ted they have no wa­ter to wet their plants.

“We have been us­ing stag­nant wa­ter from near­by ponds to wet our plants. What else can we do?”

Hav­ing faced many chal­lenges, Sa­roop ad­mit­ted the farm­ers feel aban­doned.

“Of course, we feel ne­glect­ed. But we vote for an MP. I don’t know if she’s in Trinidad or not… or where she is. But we would like to see her in the Nar­i­va Swamp.”

The farm­ers are pray­ing that their pleas reach Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram’s ears.

“We are send­ing a mes­sage to the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture; please hear the plight of the farm­ers and get in­volved. We need them up in Nar­i­va Swamp al­so be­cause farm­ers go­ing through a lot up here and we fed up of it be­cause is food se­cu­ri­ty we are look­ing at.”

Sa­roop em­pha­sised that the Gov­ern­ment needs to pay more at­ten­tion to agri­cul­ture to achieve food sus­tain­abil­i­ty and se­cu­ri­ty.

“Hav­ing our food bas­ket in Plum Mi­tan and hav­ing it in this con­di­tion is not the cor­rect thing. This is not some­thing that we de­serve in our coun­try like this. We need to do bet­ter,” a vis­i­bly an­gry Sa­roop said.

Rocky road for res­i­dents

Throngs of vil­lagers lined the en­trance of the Cu­napo South­ern Main Road, which stretch­es from San­gre Grande to Rio Claro.

The 15-mile road has be­come a dai­ly headache for users be­cause of its huge craters that have been formed over time.

For 62-year-old res­i­dent Car­lyle Ab­erdeen, who us­es this road reg­u­lar­ly, it’s the worst he has seen.

Ab­erdeen said the road has not been paved in over 50 years.

On two oc­ca­sions, Ab­erdeen claimed he spoke to Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Shiv­an­na Sam, their rep­re­sen­ta­tive, re­gard­ing the road’s de­plorable state.

Ab­erdeen claimed he was told that the State does not have the funds to repave the road, which he said could cost $30 mil­lion.

As a short-term mea­sure, Ab­erdeen said he sug­gest­ed to Sam that the Gov­ern­ment could patch the Man­zanil­la Plum Mi­tan Road, which vil­lagers have been us­ing as an al­ter­na­tive route.

“And since then, noth­ing has hap­pened for ei­ther of the roads.”

He said that the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion MPs have been dis­trib­ut­ing school bags and sup­plies to chil­dren for the re­open­ing of the new school term to­mor­row.

“But af­ter the chil­dren have got­ten the bags and so on, where are they go­ing to pass to get to school? You need to look at ac­cess to the schools. The in­sti­tu­tions are suf­fer­ing in this vil­lage, in par­tic­u­lar.”

Ab­erdeen said de­liv­ery trucks are re­fus­ing to drop off goods be­tween Biche and Rio Claro due to the road’s de­te­ri­o­ra­tion.

To make mat­ters worse, some taxi dri­vers over­charge pas­sen­gers be­cause of the de­plorable roads.

“Some­times a per­son is pay­ing $60 to go home and it’s $10 to reach the heart of the vil­lage. And just to get in­to Marp­er Farm, be­cause of the road con­di­tion, they have to pay $50 ex­tra,” said Maxime.

Taxi dri­vers and mo­torists have dif­fi­cul­ty nav­i­gat­ing the deep pot­holes.

In the last five years, Maxime said some res­i­dents moved out of the com­mu­ni­ty be­cause of the crum­bling roads, lack of jobs and no in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment.

Taxi dri­ver Stan­ley Morales said dri­vers who ply the route are threat­en­ing to in­crease their fare from $15 to $17 be­cause they have to dig deep­er in­to their pock­ets to re­place their shocks, sus­pen­sion and tyres.

Morales said when a road falls in­to dis­re­pair, the whole com­mu­ni­ty feels the pinch and pres­sure.

Guardian Me­dia mes­saged Sam and Rati­ram via What­sApp, re­gard­ing the farm­ers’ and res­i­dents’ con­cerns, but they failed to re­spond.