SUNDAY 3 JUNE, 2018 – UWI TODAY
5
FOOD & AGRICULTURE
Growing more local food, including animals like this Barbados
Blackbelly sheep spotted at the TechAgri expo held at UWI earlier
this year, will help us become more self-reliant and food secure.
Barbados Blackbelly sheep can tolerate heat, breed all year round
(unlike other sheep breeds), are generally disease-resistant and are
farmed for their lean and mild-flavoured meat.
PHOTO: ANN ALI
Locally grown sweet peppers at the TechAgri expo held at UWI
earlier this year.
PHOTO: ANN ALI
From left: Dr Wayne Ganpat (Dean of The UWI Faculty of Food and Agriculture), Clarence Rambharat (Minister of Agriculture, Land and
Fisheries) and Winston Rudder (Chairman of the Cocoa Development Company of T&T Limited)
PHOTO: COURTESY FACULTY OF FOOD & AGRICULTURE
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
frommany 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.”
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
agriculturewhich ismaking 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.
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