Presto expands school hydroponics drive with fifth garden installation

An­drea Perez Sobers

Presto has tak­en an­oth­er step in its push to re­shape agri­cul­tur­al learn­ing in pri­ma­ry schools, de­liv­er­ing its fifth Hy­dro­pon­ics Gar­den this time to El So­cor­ro South Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School. The in­stal­la­tion, hand­ed over on Tues­day, equips stu­dents with the tools and train­ing to grow let­tuce, chive, cel­ery, and sweet pep­pers us­ing clean, ef­fi­cient, soil-free tech­nol­o­gy that mir­rors mod­ern farm­ing prac­tices.

For Presto, the project re­in­forces its com­mit­ment to its brand promise Fresh. Easy. Quick. Lo­cal while deep­en­ing the com­pa­ny’s cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty foot­print. But the im­pact ex­tends well be­yond brand­ing. The sys­tem is be­ing ful­ly in­te­grat­ed in­to the school’s agri­cul­tur­al sci­ence cur­ricu­lum, trans­form­ing what was once a the­o­ret­i­cal sub­ject in­to a hands-on, farm-to-ta­ble learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for pupils from Stan­dard 1 through Stan­dard 5.

Rep­re­sent­ing Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr. Michael Dowlath, Cur­ricu­lum Of­fi­cer for Agri­cul­tur­al Sci­ence Dr. Vishal Ram­jat­tan un­der­scored how the ini­tia­tive strength­ens the min­istry’s part­ner­ship with Presto and sup­ports the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor’s push to­ward ex­pe­ri­en­tial learn­ing. He said the hy­dro­pon­ic set­up cre­ates an ac­tive learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment that en­cour­ages prob­lem solv­ing, sci­en­tif­ic in­quiry, and a prac­ti­cal un­der­stand­ing of food pro­duc­tion.

Presto Di­rec­tor and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Man­ag­er Jean-Luc Mout­tet framed the gar­den as an in­vest­ment in the next gen­er­a­tion, point­ing out that teach­ing chil­dren how food is grown builds in­de­pen­dence, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and long-term en­vi­ron­men­tal aware­ness. Prin­ci­pal Vi­ji Jo­gie agreed, de­scrib­ing the project as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for stu­dents to build own­er­ship over their ed­u­ca­tion while de­vel­op­ing health­i­er at­ti­tudes to­ward what they eat.

Tues­day’s launch al­so saw the in­volve­ment of School Su­per­vi­sor II Chris Metivi­er and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the var­i­ous co-spon­sors. Hy­dro­pon­ics spe­cial­ist Alex Jones of Ari­apon­ics Ltd. walked stu­dents through the com­po­nents of the sys­tem from grow beds to nu­tri­ent lines be­fore lead­ing them in plant­i­ng their first seedlings.

The ini­tia­tive is de­liv­ered through a part­ner­ship in­volv­ing Presto, the Vic­tor & Sal­ly Mout­tet Foun­da­tion, and Aca­do Foods (Su­per Cow). Its pur­pose is straight­for­ward: ex­pose chil­dren to sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture in a way that is en­gag­ing, prac­ti­cal, and fun.

The El So­cor­ro South in­stal­la­tion adds to ear­li­er roll­outs at Ari­ma Pres­by­ter­ian, Arou­ca Gov­ern­ment, Mon­trose Gov­ern­ment, and Mal­oney Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry Schools. Presto aims to com­plete ten gar­dens across Trinidad, build­ing a net­work of young grow­ers who un­der­stand the val­ue of lo­cal pro­duc­tion.

Found­ed in 2016 and known for its con­ve­nience-fo­cused re­tail mod­el, Presto con­tin­ues to ex­tend its reach be­yond the gro­cery aisle this time, di­rect­ly in­to the class­room, one hy­dro­pon­ic gar­den at a time.