Bharath praises media for focus on agriculture reporting

Prof. John  Spence receives his award from Minister of Food Production Vasant Bharath

Food Production Minister Vasant Bharath on Monday praised the media for its excellence in putting agriculture on their agenda.

He was speaking at the third annual media awards sponsored jointly by the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture (IICA) and the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI).

Bharath said his Ministry is trying to make agriculture appealing to young people.

He added that Cabinet has approved the hiring of 50 agricultural graduates from September every year, starting this year.

Other initiatives include:

• the construction of 250 kilometres of agricultural access roads to be completed in August
• the construction of 300 irrigation ponds over the past four months
• the commissioning of fish landing sites
• He also spoke of plans to revive the rice industry in Trinidad through the use of one of the many large farms

Some of the award winners are:

• Aabida Allaham - best news story in the print category
• Krishna Maharaj - best feature photograph 
• Shaliza Hassanali - best human interest story
• Dixie Ann Dickson - best business feature 
• Dilip Singh - best news photograph
• Nadine Hackett - best news story for television
• Karma Ballah-Boyke - best feature /documentary for television
• Paolo Kernahan - web-based and digital media in the new media category
• Prof John Spence - best agriculture weekly column
• Guardian Media Limited - overall excellence in agriculture journalism award.