(Trinidad Express) Three new mega farms are expected to be up and running by the end of the year, Food Production Minister Vasant Bharath said on Tuesday.
The farms, located at Orange Grove, Edinburgh and Felicity, are expected to reduce the price of food in the long term, he said.
Bharath made the statement during an interview with the Express following the opening ceremony of an agricultural workshop for journalists at the Hilton Trinidad yesterday.
Fifteen mega farms were an initiative of the former PNM government but several of the farms were not able to commence production.
The Tucker Valley mega farm at Chaguaramas, which is managed by the Chaguaramas Development Authority (CDA), was one of two farms that started. It failed to produce enough to meet market demands.
When asked about the status of Tucker Valley, Bharath said it was “in the process of being transferred across from the Ministry of Housing and Environment to the Ministry of Food Production”.
Additionally, he said, the ministry was looking at producing “onions and carrots because we believe that the soil there is particularly good for that”.
“So it’s just a good experiment at this point in time because if we get our other farms up and running and if we get the rest of the industry and the best of the agricultural sector up and running properly, we will have an over supply of regular food crops in Trinidad and Tobago,” he said.
In the short term, Bharath said the National Flour Mills (NFM) has been asked to hold on a proposed feed price increase.
“The price of corn is very high, feed is high and it translates into a higher cost for sheep and goat and the cost of chicken in Trinidad and Tobago and other animals that we rear … so that we could ensure that we keep the price of meat relatively stable,” he said.
He said Government is in the process of establishing a feed management centre at Mon Jaloux Estate in order to “provide farmers with affordable feed”.
