T&T Agriculture Story -In a Nutshell

The current annual food import bill of Trinidad and Tobago stands in excess of $5 Billion Dollars (TT). There is no coherent agricultural development policy or plan. There is no Food Security or Food Self-Sufficiency plan from official quarters. 
In developing proposals for a Recovery and Beyond Plan, proposals for the agricultural sector and feeding the nation are included. Below is Part 1 which provides an analysis, in brief, of how and why this country has moved from being a net exporter of cash and food produce to being a net importer with massive food import bills which have skyrocketed in the last 5 decades.
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Let’s start this story from the start.
In the beginning, there was colonial conquest and annexation of these 2 islands (and the others of this island chain).
Agriculture using unpaid labour of dehumanized slaves and later, indentured labour,  producing mainly inputs for the factories of the colonial power.
The produce from these islands were called primary exports and the economies of these annexed lands were called plantation economies.
The main crops were sugar and cocoa - the monocrops here.
The other Caribbean islands produced bananas and other crops.
These crops were so important to the imperial power’s manufacturers and merchants that they created an Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture (ICTA) in Trinidad, on August 30, 1921, to do research to boost production of the various input crops produced throughout the British Empire.
For instance, bulk cocoa production was done in Africa and the taste of the chocolates produced in England was improved by the ‘premium’ flavouring cocoas bred by the ICTA and grown in these 2 islands mainly.
Food crops necessary to keep the labour power alive and working was just enough for that purpose.
After Emancipation (1834) and again after the end of Indentureship (1917), food production expanded by the ‘free’ labourers to supply the domestic demand.
In Tobago, partly because of the Metayage system under which the ex-slaves produced mainly food crops, food production flourished.
By the 1920’s, Tobago was called the Food Basket of the Caribbean, exporting food crops, fruits, etc to Trinidad and other Caribbean islands as well as Venezuela.
In Trinidad, food production including vegetables and rice expanded in different parts of the island.
Coconut and citrus production were also large scale and provided inputs on the island - Coconut and Citrus Growers Associations - located near the capital.
The products of these factories became export products.
By Independence (1962) oil production in Trinidad and tourism in Tobago, to a much lesser degree, became major GDP contributors.
Oil replaced sugar and cocoa as the major export ‘monocrop’ and main source of Government Revenue.
Estates (cocoa, coconut, citrus) all over the country were in difficulty.
The Central Marketing Agency’s (CMA now NAMDEVCO) farmgate truck collection system for food crops in Tobago was abandoned.
Agricultural production overall began to decline.
The abuse of the best agricultural lands (according to the land capability study published in 1965) for housing in Diego Martin, Valsayn, etc in Trinidad and for hotel development at Mt. Irvin and elsewhere in Tobago expanded.
Livestock farming was allocated to some of the least productive soils making grass-fed animal production almost impossible.
A series of Oil and Food Conferences in the 1970’s promoted the notion of large scale ‘mega farm’ production (1000 acres, etc) to develop new export crops - Corn and Soya at Chaguaramas and Piarco, for example.
Land tenure issues facing small farmers have never been satisfactorily resolved.
The import and distribution of agricultural inputs from seeds, chemicals, feeds, machinery and equipment were monopolized by the merchant conglomerates.
They also controlled the import and distribution of processed foods through the wholesale merchant and retail supermarket chains.
Small farmers producing vegetables and root crops were marginalized on both islands with poor marketing systems, land tenure issues, hostile competition from imported food products, poor irrigation and drainage systems, competition for labour from Government make-work schemes from Special Works to DEWD, LID to CEPEP.
The dairy production to feed the multinational Nestlé factory (which squeezed out local milk producers) expanded and eventually died as the factory abandoned production here for more profitable imported products.
The same multinational also destroyed the citrus industry in similar manner.
Despite the Government and UWI agriculture faculty (successor of the ICTA) research in small ruminant agriculture, including the Sugarcane Feed Centre, the sector has declined on both islands because of marketing and other issues.
Rice production has also suffered a similar fate.
The only large scale production that has succeeded is the poultry industry with a monopoly of processors extracting profits based on onerous contract farming arrangements and later their own ‘factory farming’ establishments.
The “localization” of the failing sugar industry in the wake of the 1970 Revolution failed to save the industry largely because of failure of Government to implement measures recommended in several reports from Government-appointed Committees on the industry.
The IADB agriculture sector loan contracted by one regime in the early 90’s and drawn down by the other in the late 90’s was used to finally shut down the industry.
Again, the importers interests won out.
There has been NO coherent agricultural plan or food security policy by all Governments for the last 58 years of Independence.
Research and proposals for import substitution like Professor Sammy’s cassava flour production project in the 1970’s; the Sugarcane Feed Centre (SFC) sugar cane/molasses feeding technology for dairy and small ruminants; the Buffalypso project have not been aggressively applied/rolled out by successive Governments even when they funded them.
The SFC technology is being utilized in Suriname, but not widely in TT where it was developed.
State agencies in financing, marketing, imparting in the agricultural sector have made no real difference in the absence of a coherent development policy for the agriculture sector of the economy and the over-reliance on the hydrocarbon sector and absence of a strategy and action to diversify the productive base of the economy.
The food importers, including those with monopoly control imports of inputs continue to be the biggest beneficiaries in the sector.

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