4-H students encouraged to embrace sustainable agriculture

Shas­tri Boodan

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

Na­tion­al 4-H Coun­cil pres­i­dent Natasha Lee has en­cour­aged young peo­ple to em­brace agri­cul­ture, food se­cu­ri­ty and sus­tain­able prac­tices as the or­gan­i­sa­tion con­tin­ues to pro­mote school and com­mu­ni­ty gar­den­ing.

Lee was speak­ing at Tues­day’s prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the 2025-2026 Na­tion­al School Gar­den Com­pe­ti­tion at the Nal Ram­s­ingh Au­di­to­ri­um, Cou­va Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce ad­min­is­tra­tive com­plex, Cam­den Road.

She said the com­pe­ti­tion taught stu­dents re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, team­work and sus­tain­able food pro­duc­tion while re­con­nect­ing them with Trinidad and To­ba­go’s agri­cul­tur­al her­itage.

“To­day we cel­e­brate much more than gar­dens. We salute our young peo­ple who have learned that with pa­tience, knowl­edge and team­work, a sim­ple seedling, slip or stick can be­come a source of nour­ish­ment, learn­ing and op­por­tu­ni­ty,” Lee said.

The ini­tia­tive fea­tured root crops and oth­er plants, in­clud­ing cas­sa­va, dasheen, sweet pota­toes, yam, ed­does, gin­ger and turmer­ic. Lee said the project en­cour­aged par­tic­i­pants to con­sid­er nu­tri­tion, food se­cu­ri­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and waste re­duc­tion, while demon­strat­ing how lo­cal­ly grown pro­duce could be trans­formed in­to nu­tri­tious meals.

She thanked root crop spe­cial­ist and Cha­co­nia Gold awardee Ramdeo Boodoo for con­duct­ing train­ing, and Ja­son Ram­saran of Ex­ten­sion Train­ing and In­for­ma­tion Ser­vices for sup­port­ing vol­un­tary lead­ers.

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries, the In­ter-Amer­i­can In­sti­tute for Co­op­er­a­tion on Agri­cul­ture and the Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Mar­ket­ing and De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion al­so as­sist­ed with sourc­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing plant­i­ng ma­te­r­i­al.

The com­pe­ti­tion as­sessed gar­den man­age­ment, plant health, sus­tain­able prac­tices and record-keep­ing, while al­low­ing clubs to ex­plore tra­di­tion­al gar­den­ing, con­tain­er plant­i­ng and hy­dro­pon­ics.

Par­tic­i­pants had two weeks to plant their seedlings, but some projects were af­fect­ed by snails de­stroy­ing their gar­dens. Lee said such set­backs high­light­ed the chal­lenges of agri­cul­ture and the need for adapt­abil­i­ty.

She urged stu­dents and vol­un­tary lead­ers to con­tin­ue cul­ti­vat­ing gar­dens, doc­u­ment­ing their ex­pe­ri­ences and shar­ing their har­vests, re­gard­less of whether they won awards.

Cal­i­for­nia Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School won the short-crop com­pe­ti­tion, while Chatham Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School cap­tured the root-crop ti­tle.

Lee en­cour­aged the awardees to re­main com­mit­ted to lo­cal food pro­duc­tion and con­tribute to a more sus­tain­able Trinidad and To­ba­go.