Eat blue foodBy SEAN DOUGLAS Wednesday, April 23 2008
MINISTER of Legal and Consumer Affairs Peter Taylor yesterday urged citizens to adapt their taste towards locally-grown food-crops in order to tackle food shortages and price-hikes that are occurring locally and globally.
He also warned that food retailers could face a ministerial order that would stop them from imposing conditions of purchase on consumers.
“This Government therefore serves fair notice...that it will not hesitate to implement the necessary legislation as it is empowered to do to discourage any such adverse trade practices which are inimical to the best interests of consumers.”
In a highly-anticipated address to the Senate, Taylor echoed the advice proffered on August 20, 2004 by his ministerial predecessor, Senate President Danny Montano for people to eat more local crops such as cassava. As part of the long-term solution to the food crisis, Taylor urged people to replace rice and flour with root-crops of which he said more would be grown.
“The increased use of root crops for processing by-products such as flour as substitutes for the traditional carbohydrates staples of wheat, rice, white potatoes and pasta, will require shifts in our taste and consumption patterns.”
This shift would reduce TT’s vulnerability to the vagaries of the international market. Each person, he said, must consider modifying his food tastes.
“For example, can we move from the use of wheat flour to the use of cassava flour which we can readily and economically produce in Trinidad and Tobago?”
The Ministry, he said, is already working on a food and nutrition policy that would foster a greater appreciation of local crops which would soon be available in large quantities and at affordable prices.
“Under carbohydrates the current initiatives will see a substantial increase in domestic production of root crops and starchy fruits such as cassava, sweet potato, eddoes, dasheen breadfruit and plantain over the next three years.” This thrust, he said, would utilise 20,000 acres of land including 14,000 acres under the Caroni (1975) Limited land distribution programme, 3,000 acres under the Government’s large-farms project and 3,000 acres of private farms under the National Agribusiness Development Programme.
Regarding the protein food-group, Taylor said the Government would actively pursue the use of cassava as an appropriate substitute for poultry feed.
Citizens would also gain a high-protein source, he said, when the Government’s production drive generates a large amount of legumes—peas and beans.
Taylor urged citizens to grow kitchen gardens for lettuce, cabbage, chive, parsley and other vegetables and to budget wisely.
In his medium-term solutions, Taylor said the Government has discussed the National Tilapia Industry Development Plan, while the Rural Development Corporation would build a fishing facility at Grand Chemin, Moruga, to significantly increase the fish supply.
Of 7,000 plots due to former workers of Caroni (1975) Limited, he said 2,000 leases have been approved, and 1,000 lots have already begun production.
Taylor’s short-term measures include the Government’s distribution of foods like lamb, chicken cereal and oil through the National Flour Mills; seeking cheaper sources of food from South America; doing a pest-risk analysis to allow the import of 15 crops such as coconuts, plantain and pumpkin; and for Caricom to review its common external tariffs.
Taylor again accused some food-retailers of unjust profiteering, saying the cost of some retailed food has risen beyond the increase in their imported price.
“Why should the price of indigenous foods such as doubles and bake-and-shark increase by 75 percent in the space of three months when there has not been a corresponding increase in the price of raw materials and other inputs such as labour, equipment and overheads to this extent?”
UNC Senator Wade Mark hit Taylor’s call for blue food, telling Newsday that changes in people’s tastes cannot come overnight. “You have to embark on a programme over a period of years in order for people to change their taste patterns.” Mark also hit Taylor’s remarks on profiteering, saying Taylor could be putting retailers and vendors at risk.
