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De­vel­oped in Kenya, the Wambugu ap­ple could be the next ma­jor cash crop for Trinidad and To­ba­go—of­fer­ing a promis­ing av­enue to re­duce the na­tion’s im­port bill and boost agri­cul­tur­al ex­ports.

At the fore­front of this ini­tia­tive is 65-year-old Bon­ney Ab­dul, who has in­vest­ed heav­i­ly in cul­ti­vat­ing the fruit at his Ravine Sable es­tate in Long­denville , where he op­er­ates Ap­ple Tree Re­search Cen­tre Caribbean. Ab­dul plans to es­tab­lish a 10-acre or­chard ded­i­cat­ed to the trop­i­cal ap­ple, a project he be­lieves could rev­o­lu­tionise lo­cal agri­cul­ture and em­pow­er small farm­ers.

Ab­dul, who has spent the past 20 years trav­el­ling across Asia and Africa fol­low­ing his re­tire­ment, first en­coun­tered the Wambugu ap­ple in pro­duc­tion abroad. Im­pressed by its re­silience and prof­itabil­i­ty, he de­cid­ed to in­tro­duce it to the Caribbean.