Rowley on agriculture: 'not enough land'

AGRICULTURE will never be as commercially viable to the TT economy as oil and gas because the country simply does not have the land space to be a major global player in the field, the Prime Minister said on Wednesday.

He made the statement at the launch of the $87 million Alutech Research and Development Facility at the Tamana In-Tech Park, Wallerfield.
The Ministry of Agriculture has consistently received one of the lowest allocations in national budgets over the years. This year, the ministry received $.780 billion.

Acknowledging the need for a “more varied diet of activities and exports,” given the country’s over-reliance on oil and gas, Dr Rowley said while diversification was a must, it must take into consideration industries that can compete successfully on the global stage.
“We do not find, very easily, answers or logistical possibilities that we could simply step from one side of the curve to the other.
“We must do everything that is possible while holding on to the gains and the support and the sustenance from oil and gas.”
Rowley said agriculture has long been trumpeted as an area worth pursuing.

“You ask, 'What are the things we can hold on to?' and the first thing that you hear is agriculture. It is easy to pronounce. Big word, but you can pronounce it very easily.”

Noting the various types of agriculture, peasant “like most of our parents were familiar with” or commercial to be sold on an international scale, Rowley said: “For a start, we have no land space to talk about to get involved in agriculture to get economies of scale.
“There are farms around the world that are bigger than Trinidad and Tobago. So economies of scale to compete with any agricultural product we are not there - not for corn, soya beans.

“Then if it is peasant agriculture, most people in this country have gone past peasant stage agriculture and would have nothing to do with it. Secondly, if it is exotic agriculture, 20,000 tonnes of cocoa, 5,000 containers of baigan... None of the economies of scale in there and none of the earnings from those areas, important as they may be, will be able to substitute effectively what we have become accustomed to which was given to us by oil and gas.”

To compound matters, Rowley said most of the people who talk about agriculture in TT “wouldn’t get their hand