T&T farmers group against move to Guyana lands

(Trinidad Express) When food prices rise, do not blame farmers, blame the government for not putting proper measures in place to keep food prices down.

This was the view expressed yesterday by President of the Trinidad Unified Farmers’ Association Shiraz Khan who said stakeholders involved in the agriculture sector were not pleased with the budget allocation of TT$1.3 billion to the Agriculture Ministry. The amount was the same allocation as last year’s.

Khan was speaking at a post-budget breakfast forum hosted by the Oilfield Work-ers’ Trade Union (OWTU) and the Co-Operative Credit

Union League of Trinidad and Tobago.

The forum was held at OWTU’s building at Circular Road San Fernando. Khan, also said that stakeholders were against Government’s decision to use land in Guyana for agricultural purposes.

He said : “Charity begins at home. You leaving our farmers in Trinidad and Tobago to go Guyana. What you all going to do there? They (government) gave out 1000 acres of land for the Chaguanas West by-election and they going to plant 10,000 acres in Guyana. If it is they give the farmers here, proper road to go into their lands, give them irrigation systems in the dry season and save them from flooding in the rainy season , we will be able to produce food.”

Khan said agricultural land was significantly cheaper in Guyana because the Guyanese government “care about feeding their people and making their farmers a better livelihood.”