In commemoration of World Earth Day, the University of the West Indies has unveiled its solar-powered food park in line with this year’s theme, ‘Our Power, Our Planet’.
This year’s theme places particular focus on promoting the use of renewable energy in order to triple clean electricity by 2030, as stated by EarthDay.Org.
The celebrations at the UWI included the distribution of seedlings for the food park, a showcase of solar-powered agricultural displays, talks on sustainability, and more.
Faculty member Patricia Jagasser gave an insight into what the food park entails: “We have plants for your home garden, and these plants were donated by the People’s Agri Centre in Arima, and they are going to continue to provide us with seedlings in the years to come to make that part of the garden sustainable. We have a lot of demonstrations of container gardening here, and we have some sweet potatoes planted by CARDI, and we also have some lettuce seedlings that were planted by students at our Arthur Lewis Hall.”
Deputy Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, Javed Ali, cemented the position of the Ministry in supporting and advancing climate action.
“This is why the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries is proud to support and implement projects that are rooted in environmental sustainability and resilience building and complements Trinidad and Tobago’s international commitments in alignment with our global Sustainable Development Goals, all towards food and nutrition security for our citizens.”
Action to mitigate the impact of climate change is a call many advocates continue to make. Keeping to this year’s theme, Director of Hermitage Limestone Ltd, Mitra Sant, stressed why this is crucial: “We are talking about sustainability. We are talking about protecting our planet for the generations to come, and the thing about it is that it starts with us. We can’t depend on anyone else to do that for us.”
The food park at UWI contains a variety of crops that they say are fully sustained by solar-powered energy. All efforts stem from sustainable practices within the campus.