Food import bill a continuing woe but ...

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

As Trinidad and To­ba­go’s an­nu­al food im­port bill hov­ers around $7 bil­lion, three once-promis­ing youth agri­cul­tur­al pro­grammes lie aban­doned, leav­ing near­ly 1,500 grad­u­ates fac­ing un­cer­tain­ty and dashed hopes.

In­tro­duced un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, the Youth in Agri­cul­ture Home­stead Pro­gramme (YAHP), the Agri­cul­tur­al Shade House Project (ASHP) and the Youth Aqua­cul­ture Project (YAP) were de­signed to at­tract young peo­ple in­to agri­cul­ture, cre­ate em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and help re­duce the coun­try’s de­pen­dence on im­port­ed food.