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June 2018
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Reliable, healthy food sources are central to everyone’s wellbeing and survival. Indeed, one of the first things any young child learns to do in life is to feed himself. But right now T&T imports most of its food to the tune of some $6 billion a year. That includes foreign fruits and vegetables, cereals, dairy, meat, alcohol, butter, spices, cocoa, fruit juices, flour, rice, fish and cheese. If such foods from the global food trade are ever disrupted, or if they become difficult or simply too expensive or unhealthy for ordinary folk to access and safely enjoy, we need to rethink those sources, and find other, perhaps better food options right here at home. We need to ponder our food security status. These and many other relevant issues were raised at the recent May 10 national symposium on Food and Nutrition Security held at the University Inn and Conference Centre, St Augustine, and spearheaded by The UWI’s own Faculty of Food and Agriculture (FFA). The one-day symposium brought together diverse major stakeholders in food, agriculture and governance from T&T and the region to discuss and brainstorm some ways forward. Representatives from farmers’ groups, supermarkets, local and regional food organizations, NGOs and local government all participated in the UWI-led initiative.
“Have you ever heard stories of the War Gardens?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. “During World War II in the 1940s, you couldn’t get anything, no ships were coming into the Gulf, there was no foreign exchange to buy anything because all money went into the war machine. So how were you going to get food? The then administration gave some people (rural and urban) a piece of land to plant food. These were called the ‘War Gardens’. Everybody grew some food, growing and eating basic but more nutritious home-grown food in the absence of luxury imports. And we all survived and did well.” He encourages us to think of parallels today: lack of foreign exchange to import food in a time of economic challenges, and the possibility of food scarcity if our imported food trade were ever to be disrupted. He also reminds us that the destructive impacts of climate change are already wreaking havoc on regional agriculture – violent hurricanes, prolonged droughts, the threat of pest and disease invasions decimating crops, and short, more intense rainfall and subsequent flooding doing damage, for instance. “We have to start taking action,” warns Ganpat. The Food Security Symposium organizers note that serious challenges in T&T’s agricultural and food sectors include:
All these factors are things that we could fix. Taken together, they result in an overall alarmingly low level of food and nutrition security in T&T, say the experts. So there is much work to be done. Dr Ganpat would like to see clear national agricultural policies and strategies for the short, medium and long terms – such as a five-year plan, a ten-year plan and a 20-year plan.
He acknowledges that UWI’s Faculty of Food and Agriculture will need to reset its research and teaching agenda to better adapt to our changing world and food production challenges. In the meanwhile, he is very grateful to the campus Principal, Brian Copeland, for his strong support of the FFA’s food security initiatives. Dr Ganpat mentions many issues – the need for more entrepreneurial-minded food and agriculture UWI graduates; the expanding role of technology in agriculture which is making some forms of agriculture less land-intensive and less labour-intensive than before (such as aquaponics, hydroponics). He also mentions his deep concern if good fertile agricultural land in T&T is diverted for other uses. Dr Ganpat believes when it comes to growing local foods, we should be thinking about developing and expanding our fruits, vegetables and root crops sectors. He thinks that some amount of foreign imports, especially wheat flour, is inevitable in the short and medium terms. The Symposium was the second of three major efforts this year by the Faculty of Food and Agriculture to promote local food sustainability and better agricultural and nutritional awareness and practices. The first was TechAGRI Expo, the faculty’s very popular annual local agricultural and food expo which this year attracted well over 7,000 visitors. Later this year there will be an international conference on “Climate Change Impacts on Food and Nutrition Security” at the Radisson Hotel on November 12-16, 2018. The Faculty of Food and Agriculture plans to identify the key strategies and action items that emerged from the recent symposium and submit these to the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries and other key stakeholders for consideration. Prof Clegg visits Trinidad
Prof Clegg’s scientific work is focused on population genetics, molecular evolution and agricultural genetics. His early work addressed the evolutionary dynamics of linked systems of genes. In the 1980s and 90s, he helped pioneer the use of molecular sequence data for understanding plant evolution. In recent years, Clegg has used genetic methods to explore the history of plant domestication, an important area of agricultural science. His visit was facilitated by the Caribbean Academy of Sciences.
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“Trinidad is not a food secure nation. We have not been for a long time,” says Dr Wayne Ganpat, Dean of UWI’s Faculty of Food and Agriculture (FFA), in a recent interview. “But we once used to be, when our parents and grandparents grew indigenous foods and knew how to live off the land.”
“We can’t just focus on the short term. We have to plan for our children. So for instance at UWI Faculty of Food and Agriculture, we need to know what crops and livestock to focus on. We may need to breed heat tolerant animal species; as temperatures rise, this will lower milk production in cows and affect production from many other animals, for instance. And we will need drought-tolerant crops that can also withstand short periods of flooding. But developing these things will take time. So we need a clear direction.” 
Eminent scientist Professor Michael Clegg visited Trinidad to give a public lecture on May 9 titled “Successes in Food and Nutrition Security in Latin America and the Caribbean” and to present the feature address at the opening ceremony of the Food and Nutrition Security Symposium at the Faculty of Food and Agriculture, UWI on May 10.
Challenges and Opportunities for Food and Nutrition Security in the Americas – The View of the Academies of Sciences was one of two recently published regional books on display at the Food and Nutrition Symposium. It is an Interamerican Network of Academies of Sciences (IANAS) and IAP (the Inter Academy Partnership) regional report published in November 2017. It discusses the state of Food and Nutrition Security in South America, Canada, Dominican Republic, Cuba, the USA and has a chapter on the Caribbean. The Caribbean chapter notes that “The status of Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) in the Caribbean, however, has been challenged by natural disasters, overexploitation of natural resources, volatility in food production and prices, barriers to trade, outdated technologies, high incidence of pests and diseases, climate change, and lack of an enabling environment to foster innovation….Food policies are weak and driven by socioeconomic and political forces.”