Click to view full size

With an an­nu­al av­er­age al­lo­ca­tion of $945 mil­lion, the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture still falls be­low the $1 bil­lion thresh­old that T&T Farm­ers’ Union ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Shi­raz Khan says would demon­strate gen­uine con­cern for the sec­tor, warn­ing that any­thing less in the 2026 bud­get would sig­nal in­dif­fer­ence by the State.

Khan told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day he hopes the Gov­ern­ment lis­tened to cit­i­zens dur­ing its con­sul­ta­tions and acts on their rec­om­men­da­tions. A vet­er­an farmer, he urged greater in­vest­ment in agri­cul­ture to cut the coun­try’s grow­ing food im­port bill and im­prove pub­lic health.

He stressed that farm­ers are not seek­ing hand­outs but es­sen­tial re­forms, in­clud­ing the re­pair of agri­cul­tur­al roads, se­cure land tenure and stronger pro­tec­tion against prae­di­al lar­ce­ny.