(Trinidad Guardian) Managing director of Caribbean Chemicals Joe Pires feels he is being targeted for the quantity of state land which he has acquired—two 100-acre parcels of land are at Orange Grove and Edinburgh. Stakeholders in the agriculture sector felt such large quantities of state lands should not have been allocated to Pires alone. Seeking to clear the air, Pires said, “I know I am being targeted by people out there. But I never got any land from this People’s Partnership Government.
“Let it be known that this Government is not pumping money into these farms,” Pires said at his San Juan office last Wednesday. The two mega farms are Edinburgh Farms, a subsidiary of Caribbean Chemicals and Agencies Ltd which Pires and family members own and operate; the other is Technology Farms Ltd, which received a licence to operate by ADM Distributors, owned by Balliram Maharaj and the T&T Agri-Business Association (TTABA).
Caribbean Chemicals received a provisional licence to operate a large farm on former Caroni Ltd land in January 2009 in a joint venture arrangement with TTABA and ADM Distributors for food production. Pires also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the ministry in April of 2010 to undertake a pilot project in onions and carrots at Tucker Valley Farms, Chaguaramas, which Food Production Minister Devant Maharaj said he would pursue in a bid to reduce the food import bill.
Pires called on those who are trying to bring him down to “put their money where their mouth is” and invest in agriculture. “Who else is investing in agriculture?” So far, Pires and his partners have invested $2.5 million at the two farms, which are 60 per cent under cultivation. He has also spent $1 million in chemicals to produce high yields. Pires said he did all this without going to the Agricultural Development Bank for a loan.
Within the last six months, Pires said, he was able to supply to the market 75,000 kilogrammes of hot peppers from seven acres of land. By December, Pires wants to increase supply to 200,000 kilogrammes, cultivating 30 acres. With his high yield, Pires said, they have been supplying hot peppers to Matouks who had been importing all pepper mash from Costa Rica. “We are now supplying local producers ten per cent of the pepper mash they require.”
Pepper mash is the base product of hot sauce. In the coming months, Pires said, they will be planting potatoes and sweet corn on a large scale. “We are the only people who are putting our money where our mouth is to show people it can be done. Nobody else has spent $3.5 million in 18 months to invest in farming.”
Told that people had raised concerns that he would soon convert his agricultural lands into commercial property, Pires said he was prohibited from doing so according to the contracts. “If this is done the lease can be revoked and we would lose our investments.”
Devant: We will be pursuing onion and carrot project
Pires said nothing was happening at the Tucker Valley Farm except for seed production. Describing the farm as a failure, Pires said the PNM spent $20 million annually in crops and only reaped $3 million. On Friday, The Agriculture Minister said he would be pursuing the onion and carrot projects. Maharaj said he would first look at its cost of production to ensure its viability.
He said he recently received a report on the onions, but his technical staff needed in-depth details, which he will get on his desk shortly. “The onion project looks favourable in terms of growing it here.” T&T imports $25 million annually in onions.
“We want to reduce that … that is our objective. We have to make sure that the candle is not costing more than the funeral.” The carrot project, Maharaj said, had some difficulty. “But I think it needs to restart.”
Maharaj could not give a time frame in which both projects would resume. Pires said he could cultivate between 40-50 acres of brown onions by December. “We want to increase production to 100 acres.” All the onions that were harvested in March, Pires said, were sold to HiLo, Subway and locals supermarkets at $1.10 per pound. The onions were retailed at $1.80, while the imported onions were sold at $2.25 per pound.
