Union, activists pledge to block housing at plant nursery

RICHARDSON DHALAI

THE Agricultural Society (ASTT), together with the Farmers Union and environmental activist Dr Wayne Kublalsingh, have vowed to stop houses being built on land currently occupied by the St Augustine nurseries including the use of “Kublalsingh-style tactics”, should that become necessary.

ASTT president Dhano Sookoo told a news conference at the OWTU’s Paramount Building headquarters in San Fernando yesterday that government’s decision was an “assault on the agriculture sector.”

“Mr Prime Minister, we say today, the people of Trinidad and Tobago say, the St Augustine nurseries stay and (Agriculture Minister) Clarence Rambharat goes,” she said. Flanked by Farmers Union president Shiraz Khan and Kublalsingh, she said over 70 years of scientific research had gone into the development of the nurseries and its “prized germplasm,” which was not available anywhere else in the Caribbean.

Germplasm, according to the Seed Biotechnology Centre website, is “living tissue from which new plants can be grown. “It can be a seed or another plant part – a leaf, a piece of stem, pollen or even just a few cells that can be turned into a whole plant. Germplasm contains the information for a species’ genetic makeup, a valuable natural resource of plant diversity.”

Sookoo said the nursery had recently supplied Guyana with thousands of citrus plants to support the development of its citrus industry.

On citrus greening disease, said to be suffered by the trees at the nursery, she said the consultant retained by the government had not recommended the destruction but the management of the trees.