More than $3.1 mil­lion in grant mon­ey has been dis­trib­uted to some 34 farm­ers as part of the Agri­cul­tur­al Fi­nance Sup­port Pro­gramme (Agro-In­cen­tive Grant), ad­min­is­tered by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries.

On Sat­ur­day 14 Sep­tem­ber 2024, Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein dis­trib­uted the grants to the group of farm­ers—part of Cy­cle 7 Batch 2 of the Pro­gramme—at the Min­istry’s Head Of­fice in Ch­agua­nas, amidst the live­ly at­mos­phere of the Namde­v­co Farm­ers’ Mar­ket.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Min­istry, the Agro-In­cen­tive Grant is a key el­e­ment of the its vi­sion for a mod­ern, com­pet­i­tive, and sus­tain­able agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, and its ef­forts to pro­mote in­no­va­tion, re­silience, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty with­in the agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty.

“[Sat­ur­day’s] grant dis­tri­b­u­tion goes be­yond fi­nan­cial sup­port; it ac­knowl­edges the es­sen­tial role each of you plays in our agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor,” Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein told the grant re­cip­i­ents.  “By in­vest­ing in your projects, we are un­der­scor­ing our com­mit­ment to stim­u­lat­ing a more ro­bust and re­silient agri­cul­tur­al in­dus­try. Your ded­i­ca­tion is piv­otal for en­sur­ing food se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and it shapes the fu­ture of our farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty.”

And Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, Sen­a­tor Avinash Singh, in con­grat­u­lat­ing the farm­ers, hailed them as he­roes in the agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty. He point­ed to their vi­tal role in help­ing feed the coun­try and re­as­sured them of the Min­istry's stead­fast com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing their ef­forts.

Min­is­ter Ho­sein un­der­scored the broad­er eco­nom­ic im­pli­ca­tions of the Grant:

“This is the true pow­er of the Agro-In­cen­tive Grant—not just to fund a project but to em­pow­er in­di­vid­u­als. We are in­vest­ing in peo­ple who will lead the way in in­no­va­tion, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and in turn clos­er to the goal of achiev­ing food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty.”

The Min­istry ex­plains the 34 Grant re­cip­i­ents rep­re­sent a di­verse cross-sec­tion of the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, in­clud­ing small-scale farm­ers and large agribusi­ness­es. The funds will be used for var­i­ous in­no­v­a­tive projects such as state-of-the-art ir­ri­ga­tion sys­tems, hy­dro­pon­ic sys­tems, so­lar pan­el in­stal­la­tions, shade hous­es, and farm im­prove­ments to meet Good Agri­cul­tur­al Prac­tices (GAP) stan­dards, in­vest­ments in new breed­ing stock for live­stock, and ad­vanced fish­ing equip­ment.

The Min­istry re­cent­ly launched its Farm­ers' Reg­is­tra­tion Por­tal, which has been de­vel­oped to en­hance ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to Min­istry ser­vices.

Min­is­ter Ho­sein en­cour­aged in­ter­est­ed in­di­vid­u­als to ap­ply for the farm­ers' badge through this por­tal, not­ing that it will pro­vide ac­cess to a va­ri­ety of grants, in­cen­tives, and pro­grammes of­fered by the Min­istry.

“By ob­tain­ing the badge, farm­ers and fish­er­folk can al­so ben­e­fit from the Agri­cul­tur­al In­cen­tive Pro­gramme (AIP), which in­cludes cash re­bates and ex­emp­tions across 92 cat­e­gories,” he said, “sup­port­ing needs such as ve­hi­cle pur­chas­es, in­te­grat­ed pest man­age­ment sys­tems, and ad­vance­ments in live­stock, tree crops, and agro pro­cess­ing. The por­tal aims to sim­pli­fy the ap­pli­ca­tion process and en­sure that all el­i­gi­ble in­di­vid­u­als can ful­ly uti­lize the avail­able sup­port.”