TT producing all the rice it needs makes no sense

AGRICULTURE Minister Clarence Rambharat said it would make no sense for this country to locally produce all of the rice that is required.

He was contributing to budget debate in the House Monday.

"Agricultural production in this country, and food, is not keeping the imports out. If we had to produce rice in this country to dispel the imports, we would have to level every building in Trinidad, Tobago and down the islands and turn them into lagoons and plant rice. But there is no economic rationale for planting rice and producing rice."

He said the country has good rice farmers whom the Government wants to keep in production. He added, however, the price of local rice as paddy is three time the price of first-grade parboiled rice.

"That is the reality."

He announced the preferred bidder for Carlsen Field mill to talk to Government about a rice parboiling plant and, after several months, and yesterday morning he delivered the letter to Trinidad Parboil Ltd to establish a rice parboil plant in Couva South.

He said every agriculture minister had fallen into the "trap" of reducing the food import bill. Rambharat recalled in his first year the food import bill dropped by $1 billion, but he had very little to do with it, as foreign exchange was tight and weather conditions in the US led to a reduction in grain prices. He said the case for supporting local farmers and farmers markets was the health of consumers.

"The food import bill will always be with us."

Rambharat said the country has been "obsessed" with local rice and the term "food security" had stuck in our language despite the reality of modern trading.