Agriculture hopes requests get fulfilled this year

President of the Tobago Agricultural Society (TAS),Micheson Neptune, is hoping that in this year’s Tobago House of Assembly’s budget, agriculture gets what it has asked for.

Finance Secretary Joel Jack will deliver the budget on June 25 at the Assembly Chamber in Scarborough. On Monday and Tuesday, Jack met with various private sector stakeholders, including representatives from TAS.

Speaking with Newsday Tobago on Wednesday, Neptune said over the years, the agricultural sector had made various requests but never received anything.

“We are hoping that, given the fact that they have said that agriculture is one of the priority areas that is supposed to work in conjunction with the tourism sector...more will be given to the agricultural sector so that we can provide the necessary support for the farmers,” he said.

Neptune said TAS has asked for an increase in the sector’s allocation.

“Over the years, we have been getting a minimal, a very small allocation and we really cannot do much so this year we are hoping that we can have an increase allocation, so that we can provide greater support to our farmers.”

He said several ‘old matters’ were brought to Jack’s attention at the meeting.

“The $100,000 grant that was announced by the Minister of Finance in the last budget, we have not heard anything about that $100,000 grant to the farmers; we want them to check it out and see what exactly the situation is and how the farmers in Tobago can access that grant.

“We also raised the issue of the $20 million which was approved for access roads for Tobago and we indicated that we hope that these funds can be released before the heavy impact of the rainfalls, so that they can do some work on those access roads. We would have submitted a list before of roads that we think need urgent rehabilitation. He (Jack) had asked us to submit an up-to-date list so that they can again look at it and start doing some work on those access roads,” he said.