Spencer: Agriculture on the move

Hayden Spencer, Secretary for the Division of Food and Fisheries, said the Division is working on turning agriculture into a vibrant economic sector.

Spencer, contributing to the debate on the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) 2018/2019 budget proposals last Thursday at the Assembly Chamber in Scarborough, listed a slew of activities including distribution of plants – ornamental and food - to farmers and home gardeners, sale of livestock and breeding stock, maintenance of crops and registration of new farmers as evidence of the sector on the move.

He said in 2017, thousands of plants – citrus, ornamentals, and vegetable seedlings were distributed from the Division’s Goldsborough lands and Louis D’or nurseries. From the Courland Estate project, farmers had access to cassava, pineapple and sweet potato plants.

Spencer said the Goldsborough Demonstration and Training Centre distributed 13 varieties of cassava to the Department of Agriculture for the multiplication and distribution to farmers, a project done in collaboration with the University of the West Indies.

“Our sales of livestock and breeding stock during the said period were 375 weaners in the area of pigs, 100 weaners in the area of rabbits, 20 cattle, 120 ducklings, 150 lambs, 19 goats, 35,000 dozen eggs … at Hope Farm, Blenheim, Mt St George and the Blenheim Sheep Project, Runnemede and Charlottesville Breeding Unit, the Louis D’or Demonstration Station and the AI Unit at Hope,” he said.

“Continued maintenance of crop production activities and crops at the various crop production centres include 10 hectares of cocoa at Louis D’or, 13 hectares at Courland of mangoes, cherry, pineapple and sweet potatoes, banana, cassava, ginger and dasheen.

“Our extension services include 2,871 farm visits to ,2452 crop and livestock farmers on the island,” he said, noting that these visits included registration of 170 new farmers between October 2016 and September 2017.

He also noted visits by Extension officers to clubs and schools; and a farmers’ re-enlistment exercise in December 2017 in allagriculture districts in Tobago.

He said a $20 million allocation to Tobago’s agriculture sector for access roads by the Minister of Finance Colm Imbert in his mid-year budget review last month would be used develop a number of roads including the Belmont Farm Road, the Golden Lane School Connector Road, the Studley Park Branch Road, the Friendship Estate Feeder Road among others. He added that 20 access roads were planned for development in 2019, including include Silk Cotton Trace, River Road in Belle Garden and others in Speyside, Kings Bay and Shaw Park.

“We recognised that the hills are the challenging areas that the farmers need to access and one of the challenges is because we can only upgrade the road for some time, within a two-year period, rainfall and vehicle movement will deteriorate the hillside. “We have done our research and what we will do is concrete these hills so with the concrete we will be getting both hard surface and drainage. This will be accessible for over 20 years,” Spencer said.

He also highlighted financial support for agro-processors through the Agriculture Incentive Programme, which he said provided 176 incentives for crops and livestock farmers in the sum of $1.7 million in 2017.

For animal help and artificial insemination, 30 farmers at 50 farms were assisted with Spencer reporting that veterinary farmers were supplied with large animal survey kits procured for artificial insemination by the Division for the sum of $110,000.

He also noted that in 2017, 25 training courses were conducted with the average attendance of 25-50 participants in the area of livestock production, beekeeping, post-harvest management, livestock health, signage production, production of farine, ham, smoke fish and fruit preservation.

Additionally, the Kendal Farm School rerolled 60 students in 11 cycles for the Youth Apprenticeship Programme in Agriculture in April 2017. “This programme focuses on farine production, herb cultivation, tropical food processing, tropical fruit and vegetable preservation, smoked fish production, beekeeping, value chain development of corn, flying fish deboning and castration of pigs,” he said.