TT to set up food security facility with Guyana

TIMES INT'L

The Trinidad and Tobago government said it “is moving to establish” a food security facility with Guyana. TT’s Finance Minister Larry Howai, delivering the TT$ 58.4 billion budget on Monday, said that with agricultural land becoming less and less available in Trinidad and Tobago, the Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration is now looking to its fellow Caribbean Community (Caricom) country to deal with the situation.

TT’s Finance Minister Larry Howai

Howai said that the facility “would commit both governments to expanding agricultural production in Guyana through the establishment of commercial relationships for funding the establishment of several large agricultural estates in Guyana”.
In 2005, Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders agreed on the Jagdeo Initiative, which was designed to advance the regional transformation of agriculture, ensure the region is food-secure and to make the sector competitive.
Contacted on the issue, Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy confirmed that his colleague, Natural Resources Minister Robert Persaud is currently in discussion with the TT government with respect to the allocation of lands to get the projects off the ground.
He said once this is completed, TT agriculture officials would meet with him and his technical people to flesh out the projects that would be set up. “What we have right now is very preliminary, but whatever project is done would be of mutual benefit to both countries and the wider Caribbean,” Dr Ramsammy said.
Meanwhile, the announcement by the TT government comes on the heels of former President Bharrat Jagdeo lamenting the fact that not many Caricom countries had taken up Guyana’s offer of arable land to farm. The proposal was one of many contained in the Jagdeo Initiative.

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