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March 2016
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“For us to add value to the ongoing debates about development, we need to do things that others are not doing,” he said. Agriculture can be income-generating through export to foreign markets, he says but first you have to build and target niche markets. He cites the way English taste buds have blossomed with the spices from India – tikka might now be the national dish, he ventures. Food security has to be the main priority, he says. You have to identify the demand-driven crops for the country, those needed for local consumption, and you have to develop the local sector so that it can feed its population. “Our task has to be to provide good lines of crops. We have to do the breeding, and partner with the farmers to grow them and process and package them. There is no reason to import food crops,” he says. His Faculty (FFA) has been reorganizing itself over the past few years at various levels. With decreasing numbers in regional enrolment, not only is there reform of the curriculum, but the Faculty is proposing a two-year diploma/associate degree which will shorten the actual Bachelor’s degree programme. The Faculty is also developing a matriculation pre-university certificate programme for CSEC certificate holders in CAPE subjects, which should come on stream this year. So, while they are trying to encourage more people to see agriculture as a career, they are also trying to broaden the scope of what is being taught and to encourage more research. One of the major thrusts of the Faculty is in graduate training, and the partnership with the China Agricultural College (CAU) is a fine example of how these relationships can work. UWI graduates spend two years at CAU pursuing an MSc in plant genetics and breeding (including a practical project) and return to St. Augustine to do the PhD under joint supervision. Four Caribbean students are involved at this point and the hope is that they will form part of the cadre of teachers in these areas. The Dean hopes that livestock genetics and breeding will be the next step. In his most recent internal report on the FFA, the Dean stresses the need to develop its infrastructure and diversify its income sources. The FFA earns income from short-term courses and its farm operations. “Over the last three years, the Faculty has been engaged in the development of a new farm at the Orange Grove site while strengthening and expanding the livestock operations in the Mt Hope farm,” he wrote. “Well-developed modern farms are critical for training at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels so the focus on farms at one level is part of the Faculty’s focus on curriculum reform.” He notes though that this involves “a modern technology-based foundation” and he cites the introduction of greenhouse technology to the region as one example. The Faculty currently operates 2234m² newly constructed greenhouses at Orange Grove. Inside are tomatoes of all kinds and sizes at different growth stages, they are trellised with strings so efficiently rigged that the tautness can be simply adjusted by a twist of the wrist. There are chili peppers: hot, mild, flavourful, long, short, red, purple, green (one type of bell pepper has some heat we are warned). There are thin-skinned cucumbers, and hardy pawpaws, gorgeously veined swiss chard. And delightfully, miniature watermelons, “Single-serving,” says the Dean. These are among the first harvests from Orange Grove; there have been new varieties of corn as well, coming from China – and this is what the Dean means when he talks about the University’s role in seeking out crops that can be grown in this tropical environment and breeding and propagating them so farmers can reap that bounty. Conceptually, it is not like the State-run mega farms, which have all but crumbled, according to the Minister of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, Clarence Rambharat. “None of the mega farms are productive,” he said, saying that the UPick one in Chaguaramas is only about three acres, and the most productive one at Orange Grove, west of the Piarco International Airport is about 200-300 acres. That one is being run by the Cunupia Farmers’ Association, he says, adding that this is the way the mega farms experiment should go. The Minister was discussing plans for agriculture in the climate of an economic recession, the need for regional food security and the enormous food import bill. While he admits the challenges are daunting, he is unfazed. “I know the sector well,” he says as he relates how his father worked in Forestry and he grew up running around its offices and has always had an interest in politics, despite his legal background. He drafted the PNM’s agriculture policy, which contained 18 points of action designed to “increase agriculture’s share of our GDP, increase employment in the sector and in particular increase the contribution of agriculture to economic growth and development in Trinidad and Tobago.”
He had noted in this draft policy that “Agriculture contributes just 0.5% of our GDP, while our food import bill is now $4 billion,” a situation he considered untenable. (Elsewhere in this issue, Gerard Best reports that half of CARICOM countries import more than 80% of their food.) And from his contribution to the House of Representatives on October 20, 2015, he believes it is time to get cracking. “I have said across the Ministry, I believe everything that has to be researched in agriculture, fisheries, food production, has already been researched. There are very few things for us to research. I believe that every conference that has to be attended to, Trinidad and abroad, has been gone to. I believe that every publication that is to be published and produced has been produced, and it is time for us to get down to the business of putting farmers and fisherfolk in front of this country.” He has taken personal responsibility for two areas he considers priority in the first year: oversight for spending and governance. And he has found them to be both complex and challenging and fraught with obstacles. A Ministry like his, with many sub divisions (like the ADB, NAMDEVCO, Seafood Industry Development Co. Fisheries Division, aquaculture: the IMA, the Cocoa Development Company of Trinidad and Tobago Ltd, to name a few), was full of duplications in myriad ways. The structures had to be recalibrated, he thought, and he needed to identify the areas that needed to be centralized. “The first priority was moving out of Port of Spain,” he said, and the Ministry should occupy its new headquarters in Chaguanas by April. He’s had a lot of issues to manage, one of which was the recent appointment of the Cocoa Development Company’s Board. “Beginning all over again, we have a new Board, to be funded by Government. We have lands, using CEPEP,” he said, as he talks about the Government’s plan to “rebuild and rehabilitate” the cocoa industry. “We should be aiming to be up in the high end production of gourmet beans.” Professor Pathmanathan Umaharan, head of the Cocoa Research Centre (CRC) at The UWI, gave an idea of what the basic beans can fetch. “The price varies depending on whether it is bulk cocoa or fine flavor cocoa. The bulk cocoa sells around US$2500 per ton. Fine flavor itself has varied prices. Trinidad cocoa sells between US$5000 to US$7000 per ton because of its reputation. Specialty branded cocoa is known to sell as high as US$12,000 per ton or more, but this is small volumes,” he says. This is where the Minister wants to see things going. “For the cocoa industry to take off, we need to bring confidence to the sector, through the Cocoa Board [CDC],” he said. “Rehabilitate, replant, change some of the practices, and bring the beans together; they have to be aggregated. I think it will happen in cocoa. Dr. Darin Sukha, a research fellow and food technologist at the CRC, had been a member of the Board of the CDC when it replaced the Cocoa and Coffee Industry Board in 2014. He no longer sits on that Board, but in a sense, the CRC is represented as the chair of its Cocoa Research Advisory Committee, Winston Rudder, has been named to chair the CDC. He believes cocoa’s time has come. “A confluence of factors within recent years has contributed to cocoa emerging as a prospect for consideration. A key has been the leadership provided by CRC in taking responsibility to examine and document issues along the entire cocoa value chain from farm/bean to consumer/chocolate bar; to coordinate with other institutions/organizations: the Ministry of Agriculture, farmers, exporter, cocoa growing communities/leaders, chocolatiers local and foreign, in addressing issues impacting the different stakeholders. As a result, cocoa is poised to be a significant earner of foreign exchange not only through production and export of high quality beans but high quality chocolate. A key incentive too is the trend in international cocoa prices: they have been consistently high and rising!” he said. Obviously, any conversation about the development of cocoa in this country has to include the CRC. The under-resourced CRC located at the St. Augustine Campus is a colossal name globally for its research and training and its cocoa pedigree as custodian of the International Cocoa Genebank. The CRC has been hosting several regular workshops for farmers, for chocolatiers, for cocoa research over the years, and just hosted a labour consultation to compile the concerns of farmers and workers in the sector. A group of 54 members of cocoa estates and farmers had been formed to look at moving germplasm around the estates as a conservation method and they are facing labour shortages.
At the consultation, three models were to be presented for discussion and possible adaptation for different sized estates – one was a CEPEP model. The recommendations from this were to be sent to the CDC and then to the Ministry. Sukha talks about these elements of the work of the CRC as critical aspects of nurturing an industry which can be rehabilitated as the Minister says. Talking about the chocolate making workshop he was facilitating the following day, he says, “You cannot teach how to make chocolate if you don’t know how. We have trained over 100 people in chocolate making. It’s a responsibility, if you want to promote development of the sector. You’re talking value-addition.” T&T won at the International Cocoa Awards last year. “Two of our samples won and five made it to the top fifty,” says Sukha proudly. “We have some beans left over from that and we decided to make some chocolates and have a farmers’ appreciation day.” This is essentially an extension of what the Dean of the Faculty of Food and Agriculture meant when he said that the university’s role is to provide scientific and technological support to the region. That’s how you are adding value. That’s how you are building a sustainable economy. |
“The UWI’s role is to provide scientific and technological support to the region,” says the Dean of the Faculty of Food and Agriculture, Isaac Bekele. He thinks that this economic downturn demands a social transformation, and the role of agriculture must be magnified. But with limited resources everywhere, he does not think that the University should be extending its reach arbitrarily into commercial enterprises. Its role should be to enable and empower both the public and private sector to fully develop their capacity. 
