July 2016


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Dr. Wayne Ganpat takes up his new post as Dean of the Faculty of Food and Agriculture on August 1, 2016. Over the next four years, he will use his expertise in “Extension” – particularly his communications and outreach skills – to attract students back to agriculture and agri-enterprise; and raise the profile of the Faculty of Food and Agriculture as the treasury for agricultural learning, research and technology, in the region. Ganpat’s mission is to be an agriculturist cultivating people.

“We have to encourage agriculture students to think outside the box, to invent the systems that make agriculture, food production, an art, a joy, and a business. We need to do this with the current students, even as we expand the enrolment in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as from the region and internationally.”

Dr. Wayne Ganpat is talking about the mission of his next four years. A primary goal is to re-establish the once vibrant presence of the Faculty in the region; working to help governments and food producers solve their many problems and repositioning the FFA at St. Augustine as the agricultural centre for the region. He also hopes to build on the work started by the retiring Dean Dr. Isaac Bekele in seeking to harmonize the several agriculture programmes across the region. One of his objectives is to communicate research findings and development efforts to bring about higher levels of food and nutrition security more widely to stakeholders, and to do this by inspiring a new generation of agro-preneurs.

The business of agriculture has changed since Wayne Ganpat started his career as an agricultural officer in the Ministry of Agriculture, over 30 years ago. He believes the field is wide open for technology-driven innovation, from growing to productivity to processing to marketing. Because producing food is one of the oldest professions, it suffers from the stigmas that have attached to it over millennia: back-breaking work at the mercy of the natural elements and the legacies of slavery and indentureship, poor returns.

“We need to encourage people to become interested in technology, in invention, in innovation, and in research into the end product of agriculture which is adequate and accessible safe and nutritious food,” says Ganpat. His mission, he claims, is outreach: for more people to come to agriculture as training for life; to spread training throughout the region via technology; to enable farmers to access information and to do research on their farms; and to remind governments and people across the region that UWI St. Augustine remains the centre of agricultural research and learning.

“At the Ministry of Agriculture, I learned the meaning of ‘extension.’ The goal is to take the results of research to the farmers. This means being the bridge between what’s happening in the experimental field and the farmers on the ground. This is how I fell into communications, which is the answer to the challenge between academia and the farm. I managed training at the Farmers Training Centre in Centeno for many years. Staying in Extension, I managed the communications unit and did a lot of staff training. My first foray into communications and public education was at the regional level after the invasion of the pink mealy bug; this was followed by the giant African snail and West Indian fruit fly among others.”

Since then, Ganpat has taken giant steps in research and publishing, including numerous peer-reviewed articles, two co-edited books on sustainable agricultural practices in the Caribbean, one on climate change impacts on food security in small island developing states, and a book on the History of Extension in Trinidad and Tobago. He is currently co-editing a book on Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change; another on Agricultural Development and Food Security in Developing Nations, and another on Weeds of the Caribbean.

In June 2016 at the UWI-NGC Awards, he was named the Most Outstanding Researcher in the Faculty of Food and Agriculture.

“I love research and writing. Extension, communications, is my passion,” he says. “I have planted food, yes, when I needed to pay university fees. I could do it again if I had to. But look around, there are so many opportunities for smart agri-business. Why can’t someone collect all the CEPEP roadside cuttings and turn them into compost for sale? With limited land space, we need to adapt or develop alternative systems of protected agriculture, appropriate for the tropics.”

Dr. Ganpat believes that young people can be creative, given the right challenges. “Perhaps we need to design interventions in the curriculum that would spur them to become entrepreneurs. I might give students in a class a different fruit or vegetable, and say to them, this is your project, find out what you might do with this to earn some money. Young people are turned on to technology: you can run several farm systems from a smart phone. This is where we need to take agriculture; young people and technology are the perfect mix to achieve this.”

Pat Ganase is a writer and editor.