T&T government to distribute 3,900 acres of land to boost food production

Minister of Food Production Vasan Bharath told reporters Thursday the government of Trinidad and Tobago will distribute 3,900 acres of land to farmers to boost food production. It's the biggest land distribution in the history the country, he said.

Bharath was speaking at the weekly post cabinet media briefing at the office of the Prime Minister. He said the intention is to drastically cut the food import bill.

The minister noted that food security is a prime concern for the People's Partnership government and the move to expand production would help in that respect.

He noted the major strides made in developing agriculture since taking office and said the most significant challenge to reviving agriculture is land tenure. 

Bharath said government will make the process easy for persons who wish to get lands for farming. He said some of the lands have already been identified in and allocated at Orange Grove, Jerningham Junction, Bejucal, Edinburgh, La Gloria Estate, Mora Valley and Felicity.

"These lands of course will be advertised in due course and be made available. Now going hand in hand with this, we have identified certain crops that we will ensure are grown on these particular pieces of land, on these particular parcels of land. The general public will be invited to apply for these lands based on the proposals they will then submit," the minister said.

He said some of the crops that will be needed are cassava, sweet potato, tomato, pumpkin, patchoi, ochro, coconut, sweet peppers and pigeon peas. In addition there will be a demand for aquaculture, the rearing of rabbits and other small livestock and rice farming.

"We will continue to allocate more lands for the resuscitation of the rice industry. At one time, not long ago, we were producing 30% of our consumption as far as rice is concerned. 

"Today, we are down less than 5% and based on certain pronouncements that have been made very recently by countries like Thailand, you will realise that there may come a point of time very soon when we may not be able to purchase rice at the type of quantity we require and certainly not at the prices we require. It is very important that we start resuscitating the rice industry," Bharath said.