NOTHING exposes Trinidad and Tobago’s recent under-development as the yam spectacle.
A land that abandoned a 77,000-acre agro farm (roughly the size of Tobago) has permitted its food import bill to skyrocket by 85 per cent in less than a decade.
The authorities allowed a powerful and tiny cartel to grow annual food imports to a staggering $7.3 billion, even amid a foreign exchange crisis.
Arable Caroni lands are occupied by fast food franchise stores, shopping malls and warehouses owned by the same business overlords.
T&T’s food production has declined even though we are signed onto a Caricom plan to reduce imports by 25 per cent this year.
In only the past year, production of dasheen bush, melongene, sweet peppers, sorrel, corn and pak choi have fallen by between 58 and 87 per cent.
There were reduced yields in cabbage, ochro, pineapple, cauliflower, bodi, pepper, chive, pigeon peas, lettuce, cucumber, watermelon and eggs.
Little Barbados has used modern technology to grow more food and Guyana has significantly increased production of rice, corn, soya, sugar and poultry.
The retail cost of food in T&T has zoomed up every recent year, with staples costing 65 per cent more than in 2018.
Now, some yam seeds (isn’t yam grown through tubers?) are being touted by Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley as “reducing our food import bill.”
Rowley’s administration, meanwhile, routinely fails to compensate farmers whose crops are ruined by floods caused by lack of maintenance of waterways.
All of that in the region’s one-time most envied economy, where Rowley last week said the launch of a Moruga fishing depot was a measure in economic diversification.
As for yams, Grenada, St. Vincent and Jamaica ship ample supplies.
Yes, Ghana’s white varieties are said to be soft and smooth-tasting.
But are yams the result of Rowley’s three costly trade trips?
Maybe yam vines would soon spread through the Point Lisas and Pointe-a-Pierre rust belts and be heralded by the Prime Minister as a major economic achievement.
It’s all a Carnival yam session!
