By Raffique Shah
April 03, 2016
Recently, there has been much noise over Trinidad and Tobago’s capacity to produce the foods that we eat.
I use the word “noise” instead of discussion or debate because so much of what is said and written is uninformed.
Continue reading Doomed to importing foods
By Raffique Shah
March 25, 2016
A recent World Bank report ranked Trinidad and Tobago as the country that generates the most “municipal solid waste”, on a per capita basis, in the world.
According to the report, every man, woman and child in this country, on average, every day, generates a mind-boggling 14.4 kilogrammes of garbage:
The world average is 1.2 kilos.
Continue reading Waste worse than corruption
No more VAT for 1,300 businesses
By Richard Lord
January 11, 2016 – guardian.co.tt
Finance Minister Colm Imbert reads the price of oil from his cellphone while Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley looks on attentively during the sitting of Parliament yesterday. PHOTO: MARCUS GONZALES
While an estimated 1,300 businesses will no longer have to pay Value Added Tax (VAT) from next month, thousands of citizens will have to dig deeper in their pockets to buy several items, such as rice (except parboiled and boiled), flour (except all purpose and wheat), coffee, orange and grapefruit juices, mauby, tea and tomato ketchup.
Continue reading Citizens to pay more for food
By Stephen Kangal
February 06, 2013
While the Minister of Planning and Sustainable Development Dr the Honourable Bhoe Tiwari is romanticizing in the spills, drills and thrills of the imagination at the expense of not giving his ministerial attention to the issues at the ground level relating to the protection and conservation of our fertile arable soils to support a thriving and sustainable food farming industry geared to foster and promote the agenda for achieving food sovereignty and security, we are now witnessing before our very eyes a cruel and ruthless desecration of the lands of the traditional food basket of Aranguez by an incipient and expanding concrete and steel jungle.
Continue reading From Cabbage Patch to Concrete Jungle
Politics before food
Sugar and Energy Festival Street Parade – October 09, 2005
By Andre Bagoo
May 18 2013 – newsday.co.tt
THE CLOSURE of Caroni (1975) Limited and consequent devastating impact on the agriculture sector and TT’s food security, may be directly linked to political considerations surrounding the then PNM government’s fear of a repeat of the 18-18 general election deadlock of 2001, Tourism Minister Stephen Cadiz said yesterday.
Continue reading The Closure of Caroni (1975) Limited
By Raffique Shah
October 20, 2012
MOST times I stay silent when I listen to people in authority or those who think they know it all say the wildest things. But there are times when I feel compelled to intervene, mostly when I think too much is at stake. This is one such intervention. For many years, but more so since the global food crisis of 2007-08, politicians and governments would vow to put this country’s food production on a growth path that would take us to full food security.
Continue reading Food for Thought
Newsday Editorial
January 23, 2012 – newsday.co.tt
There are bound to be questions and indeed raised eyebrows at the purchase of a luxury Porsche Cayenne SUV – with a showroom price tag of $925,000 – for the official use of Minister of Food Production, Vasant Bharath. Bharath defended the purchase by saying the actual price paid – after exemptions for taxes and duties – was about $400,000, which he said was comparable to the cost of other SUVs.
Continue reading Porsche questions
By Derren Joseph
August 30, 2011
There was a recent story in the Jamaica Observer about food security in Jamaica that got me thinking. Like Trinidad, Jamaica is a net importer of food. Two officials at Jamaica’s College of Agriculture, Science and Education (Case) argued that crucial political decisions must be made in order to secure Jamaica’s ability to feed the population, particularly in the face of a natural disaster such as a hurricane. The officials advocated an urgent need for efficient national food storage systems.
Continue reading Ensuring T&T’s Food Security
Newsday Editorial
May 2 2011 – newsday.co.tt
It is to be sincerely hoped that the Government will stand firm in the decision to put an end to the illegal occupation of State lands for whatever purpose.
This newspaper’s lead story yesterday gave another side, indeed food for thought, of the now highly publicised bulldozing of acres under food production in D’Abadie and other places which so incensed the public.
Continue reading Government must stand firm
By Raffique Shah
April 30, 2011
WHEN one sees the insensitivity—one might even say insanity—of persons who authorised and executed the destruction of food and root crops on three parcels of state land, one wonders what the hell is going on in this country. Successive governments, the incumbents included, have proclaimed their intent to make food production a priority. Yet, they have all committed agrarian atrocities, most times citing “progress” as an excuse. The price of progress is indeed very high.
Continue reading Agrarian Atrocity