Stakeholders warn CEPEP transition to farming will be difficult

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

As CEPEP work­ers in To­ba­go get ready to re­place their bushwack­ers with farm­ing tools, stake­hold­ers are an­tic­i­pat­ing a dif­fi­cult tran­si­tion, as many be­lieve an over­haul of the work cul­ture is re­quired.

Dur­ing Mon­day’s Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Fi­nance Sec­re­tary Petal-Ann Roberts re­vealed the CEPEP pro­gramme will now fall un­der Di­vi­sion of Food Se­cu­ri­ty.

Roberts said work­ers will be em­ployed on mega farms in an ini­tia­tive de­signed to boost To­ba­go’s food re­silience.

She an­tic­i­pat­ed a dou­bling of the agri­cul­tur­al out­put in the next fis­cal year, with the sec­tor’s con­tri­bu­tion to the is­land’s gross do­mes­tic prod­uct mov­ing from one to two per cent.

Cur­tis Williams, chair­man of the To­ba­go arm of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, told CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew that he was ea­ger to see Thurs­day’s Bud­get de­bate for a more de­tailed ex­pla­na­tion on how the pro­gramme will be im­ple­ment­ed. How­ev­er, he said a shift in mind­set is re­quired for the ini­tia­tive to bear fruit.

“Re-en­gi­neer­ing the CEPEP men­tal­i­ty or the minds of the CEPEP folks in­to farm­ing is a dif­fi­cult task,” he said.

“They nor­mal­ly do two, three hours on morn­ing—if so much— and to get them now go­ing and treat­ing with agri­cul­ture on a mas­sive way is not an easy task.”

Williams said he an­tic­i­pates some push­back from CEPEP em­ploy­ees and queried what their work­ing hours would be on these mega farms.

Roberts al­so an­nounced the re­nam­ing of the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) to the Pro­gramme for In­fra­struc­ture Up­grade in Ur­ban and Rur­al Com­mu­ni­ties.

The URP has long in­cor­po­rat­ed agri­cul­ture as part of its pro­gramme with farms in Rox­bor­ough and oth­er lo­ca­tions.

Sec­re­tary of Pub­lic In­fra­struc­ture and Trans­porta­tion Natisha Charles-Pan­tin con­firmed yes­ter­day that URP will main­tain its agri­cul­tur­al com­po­nent.

Roland Mur­ray, as­sis­tant re­gion­al su­per­vi­sor, agri­cul­ture unit, URP, said a pas­sion for farm­ing is key to reap­ing a boun­ti­ful har­vest.

Mur­ray said he was in full sup­port of the CEPEP ini­tia­tive as the is­land must be able to feed it­self.

How­ev­er, he too agreed that it would be dif­fi­cult for the CEPEP work­ers to tran­si­tion in­to farm­ing af­ter years of work­ing in that pro­gramme.

He said farm­ers must have pas­sion, dis­ci­pline and a strong work eth­ic.

He said prop­er train­ing with agron­o­mists and oth­er of­fi­cials is need­ed so CEPEP work­ers can un­der­stand the ba­sics.

Mur­ray said even in the URP agri­cul­ture unit, some par­tic­i­pants are not ful­ly in­vest­ed.

“It is up to the peo­ple to show their in­ter­est in it. This morn­ing I had a meet­ing with my work­ers to get them in­ter­est­ed in it. Peo­ple just want to kill the time, the two hours, to go home and do what they have to do. Yuh have to in­still it for them to un­der­stand, we have to be able to feed we self.”

He urged CEPEP and URP work­ers to take agri­cul­ture se­ri­ous­ly, as it could be the key to their fi­nan­cial free­dom.

He said the re­struc­tur­ing of the CEPEP was nec­es­sary as hav­ing dozens of work­ers beau­ti­fy­ing one park was not the best use of re­sources.

At Mon­day’s post-bud­get me­dia con­fer­ence, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said there will be a co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach to de­cide the crops for the mega farms.

He said the aim is to de­vel­op To­bag­o­ni­ans to make them more self-re­liant and pros­per­ous.

“The av­er­age To­ba­go de­serves more than just a THA wuk, more than just a morn­ing wuk, more than a few min­utes just cut­lass­ing,” he said.