Fay­ola Fras­er

Krys­tle Phillips did not en­ter agri­cul­ture through pol­i­cy, train­ing, or even in­ten­tion; she ar­rived there by recog­nis­ing a gap that sits at the heart of one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s biggest eco­nom­ic prob­lems: food im­ports. A “born and bred Laven­til­lean”, her ear­li­est ex­po­sure to agri­cul­ture came from her fa­ther, even though she did not recog­nise it at the time. She re­mem­bers her fa­ther as “an ur­ban farmer” who sold eggs, chick­ens, peas, and oth­er goods to sup­port the house­hold. To­day, that mem­o­ry sits with her not on­ly as a guid­ing force in her line of work, but couched with­in a much larg­er na­tion­al is­sue, one where lo­cal agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion re­mains un­der­de­vel­oped, and bil­lions are spent an­nu­al­ly bring­ing food in­to the coun­try.

Phillips’ path in­to this space re­flects her own vary­ing en­tre­pre­neur­ial ex­pe­ri­ences, and her in­nate abil­i­ty to re­spond to gaps where she sens­es them. Af­ter launch­ing her first busi­ness at 18 and lat­er work­ing across roles in IT, in­ven­to­ry co­or­di­na­tion, and pro­cure­ment, she de­vel­oped a skill that would de­fine her ca­reer: sourc­ing. She be­came known in her com­mu­ni­ty for find­ing what oth­ers could not, of­ten go­ing be­yond tra­di­tion­al sup­pli­ers and tap­ping in­to glob­al net­works. And it was through this work that she be­gan to no­tice a pat­tern spe­cif­ic to farm­ers and agro-proces­sors - that they were con­sis­tent­ly un­able to ac­cess the equip­ment and parts they need­ed lo­cal­ly.

By 2014, she be­gan fo­cus­ing more de­lib­er­ate­ly on agri­cul­ture, not as a farmer, but as a fa­cil­i­ta­tor. What she saw was not just a sup­ply is­sue, but a gen­er­al sys­tems fail­ure. Farm­ers could grow crops, but they could not al­ways store them, process them, or bring them to mar­ket ef­fi­cient­ly due to in­con­sis­tent sources of func­tion­al equip­ment. Equip­ment like cen­trifuges, freez­ers, and pro­cess­ing tools was ei­ther un­avail­able, too ex­pen­sive, or lacked af­ter-sales sup­port. With­out these, lo­cal pro­duc­tion could not com­pete with the con­sis­ten­cy of im­ports.

Phillips has en­coun­tered not on­ly the lack of ac­cess to equip­ment through her clients, but al­so speaks on the “lack of or­gan­i­sa­tion and co­or­di­na­tion in the in­dus­try”. She says that farm­ers and agro-proces­sors need “more in­for­ma­tion, more guid­ance, and bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion and co­or­di­na­tion sys­tems.” She ref­er­ences one of her clients, a pas­sion fruit farmer in South Trinidad who had in­vest­ed in pro­duc­tion and even ac­quired a batch freez­er to pulp the fruit. De­spite this, the farmer had no or­gan­ised, clear path­way to mar­ket. The prod­uct sat un­used, not be­cause of a lack of de­mand, but be­cause of a lack of co­or­di­na­tion. These kinds of break­downs are com­mon across the sec­tor and con­tribute di­rect­ly to the coun­try’s re­liance on im­port­ed food.

A ma­jor is­sue, she ex­plains, is the ab­sence of struc­tured plan­ning with­in agri­cul­ture. Farm­ers of­ten op­er­ate in­de­pen­dent­ly, with­out da­ta on mar­ket de­mand or co­or­di­na­tion with oth­er pro­duc­ers. The re­sult is du­pli­ca­tion, with too many peo­ple grow­ing the same crops at the same time, fol­lowed by short­ages when pro­duc­tion drops off. This in­con­sis­ten­cy makes it dif­fi­cult for lo­cal agri­cul­ture to es­tab­lish the re­li­a­bil­i­ty need­ed to dis­place im­ports.

The prob­lem ex­tends be­yond pro­duc­tion in­to knowl­edge and re­source gaps. Many farm­ers lack guid­ance onQ soil man­age­ment, crop se­lec­tion, and ef­fi­cient use of in­puts. Equip­ment is of­ten un­der­uti­lized or mis­ap­plied, not due to neg­li­gence, but due to lim­it­ed tech­ni­cal sup­port. For a coun­try try­ing to re­duce its im­port bill, these in­ef­fi­cien­cies rep­re­sent lost po­ten­tial. In­creas­ing pro­duc­tion alone is not enough; it must be sup­port­ed by sys­tems that im­prove pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and co­or­di­na­tion.

Phillips has po­si­tioned her fo­cus on ad­dress­ing part of that gap, work­ing pri­mar­i­ly with mi­cro and small en­ter­pris­es. An en­tre­pre­neur at heart, she be­lieves in build­ing com­mu­ni­ties with oth­er mi­cro and small busi­ness­es, and ad­vis­es oth­er en­tre­pre­neurs to do the same.

Her re­cent for­ay in­to writ­ing shows her in­domitable spir­it and her com­mit­ment to this in­dus­try. Af­ter a trip to Thai­land last year, she au­thored five books, in­clud­ing an up­com­ing re­lease ti­tled Mis­di­ag­nosed, which cri­tiques sys­temic fail­ures in agri­cul­ture and en­tre­pre­neur­ship. The book chal­lenges the nar­ra­tives of­ten im­posed on farm­ers, that suc­cess is sim­ply a mat­ter of ef­fort or tech­nique, ar­gu­ing in­stead that many are set up to fail with­in bro­ken sys­tems.

For young en­tre­pre­neurs, her ad­vice is both lib­er­at­ing and sober­ing. “Fol­low your call­ing”, she in­sists, “re­gard­less of mar­ket sat­u­ra­tion or ex­ter­nal doubt - but do so with clear eyes.” She fur­ther ac­knowl­edges that “en­tre­pre­neur­ship is not the glam­orous es­cape so­cial me­dia of­ten por­trays. It de­mands re­lent­less work, re­silience, and a will­ing­ness to an­swer to many boss­es in the form of clients.” There is no sick leave, no guar­an­teed in­come, but on­ly the dri­ve to keep go­ing.

In Phillips’ jour­ney, the threads of tech­nol­o­gy, en­tre­pre­neur­ship, and agri­cul­ture con­verge in­to some­thing larg­er than per­son­al suc­cess. Her work un­der­scores a crit­i­cal truth for Trinidad and To­ba­go: re­duc­ing food im­ports is not mere­ly an eco­nom­ic goal, but a struc­tur­al chal­lenge that re­quires re­think­ing how farm­ers are sup­port­ed, con­nect­ed, and em­pow­ered. And some­times, the peo­ple best po­si­tioned to lead that change are those who, like her, learned its val­ue long be­fore they had a name for it.w