Grow corn and maize on Caroni lands

THE EDITOR: I recently read with interest the news about the shortage of animal feeds in the country. One of reasons given for the shortage had to do with importation issues.

Every time I travel past the abandoned Caroni sugar cane lands, I agonise about their lack of use in producing something to benefit the country.

Is it not possible to grow corn (maize) and soya beans on the lands that are flat and use machines to cultivate, sow and harvest the crops?

There is the possibility of reaping two crops per year with corn alternating with soya beans, with the latter replenishing the nitrogen used up by the former.

I would have thought with the pandemic and the much touted shift in focus towards agriculture something like this could have been considered by the planners.

Corn is used as a primary input to manufacture cereals, cooking oil, animal feeds, starch and flour, among other products.

With the rapidly increasing Venezuelan population the demand for corn will surely rise as it is one of their popular staple food items.

L DASS

Arouca