Local farmers, consumers, and cooks will soon have a new staple to add to the local landscape as yams from Ghana are now being grown in Trinidad and Tobago.
Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley and Minister of Youth Development and National Service, Foster Cummings, accompanied by several Ministers, planted four varieties of yam from Ghana in Chaguaramas on Thursday.
The Prime Minister stated, “We recently received as a gift from Dr. Mitchell at the Ghanaian authorities 10,000 units of planting material of four varieties of yams. So we are introducing those varieties into Trinidad and Tobago now. We planted some in Tobago already this week.”
Dr. Rowley noted that this country imports a significant amount of its food, including potatoes from Canada.
“From these ten thousand plants, we intend to multiply and to propagate the species into the farming community. So the first round we plant them in areas like this, and I hope that the Ministry’s acreage across the street will also plant some and elsewhere in our research areas around Trinidad, and we will watch them grow, see what they produce.”
The Prime Minister encouraged locals to return to a diet that includes eating what we grow here in Trinidad and Tobago.
“We have to go out, see what is out there, whether it is plant or animal, and see what is good for us. Bring them into this country and try to have our own stocks, our own herds, our own produce, produced by the hands of Trinidad and Tobago.”
The yams have been planted in four locations across the country and will take up to nine months for the crops to mature.