The Trin­ba­go Farm­ers Union (TFU) is seek­ing an ur­gent meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and key gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials to ad­dress grow­ing con­cerns over the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s dairy in­dus­try amid re­ports that Nestlé is seek­ing to di­vest its lo­cal op­er­a­tions.

TFU pres­i­dent Shi­raz Khan yes­ter­day warned that hun­dreds of dairy farm­ers, na­tion­al food se­cu­ri­ty and the sur­vival of the coun­try’s re­main­ing dairy in­dus­try are at risk if the com­pa­ny’s milk col­lec­tion sys­tem is dis­con­tin­ued.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence, Khan called for dis­cus­sions in­volv­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, the Min­istries of Agri­cul­ture, Trade, Labour and Ed­u­ca­tion, as well as Nestlé rep­re­sen­ta­tives, to de­ter­mine the way for­ward for the sec­tor.