Land Use Planning for Agricultural Diversification of Sugar Estates in Trinidad and Tobago

Seunarine Persad

No 256444, 40th Annual Meeting, July 19-23, 2004, St. Johns, U.S. Virgin Islands from Caribbean Food Crops Society

Abstract: Restructuring of the sugar industry in Trinidad and Tobago has released 12,158 hectares of sugarcane lands for agricultural diversification. Caroni (1975) Limited, a state enterprise sugar company controls 31,000 hectares, representing 25% of the best available arable lands in the country. Soil, land capability and agro-ecological analyses conducted on Caroni (1975) land holdings indicate that 67% of the lands are in Class III and IV, representing good agricultural lands with moderate soil fertility, and 33% of the lands are in Class V, VI and VII, depicting marginal agricultural lands. Continuous sugarcane production with sub-optimal soil fertility management programmes has resulted in soil nutrient and organic matter depletion of lands, soil acidification, and land degradation with a consequent reduction in agricultural productivity. The technical and operational considerations for proposed diversification programmes to root crops, rice, vegetable crops, tropical fruits and livestock in relation to water management, soil technology for heavy clays, crop selection, farmer training, extension, credit and support systems are presented. The implications for food and nutrition security, and sustainable production systems in Trinidad and Tobago are highlighted.

Keywords: Agribusiness; Crop Production/Industries; International Relations/Trade (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 10
Date: 2004-07-19
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/256444/files/19.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:cfcs04:256444

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.256444

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 40th Annual Meeting, July 19-23, 2004, St. Johns, U.S. Virgin Islands from Caribbean Food Crops Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().