EU Preferential Partners in Search of New Policy Strategies for Agriculture: The Case of Citrus Sector in Trinidad and Tobago

The FTAA, which should be initiated by 2006, would include Brazil and the US, with a combined
output of more than 85 percent of the world’s orange juice. At the FTAA T&T will be negotiating from
the current bound rate, with oranges and orange juice placed in the tariff elimination time schedule of
more than ten years, thus enabling liberalization of trade in these items to begin after 2015. However,
during the negotiations, it is possible that requests for more favourable concessions could be made from
producers of FTAA partners. T&T is also part of the CARICOM/ Cuba and CARICOM/ Dominican
Republic free trade agreements. Under these agreements, fresh citrus will probably trade under special
arrangements.

4. Citrus production in Trinidad and Tobago

The Caribbean accounts for 1.4% of world citrus production. In the Caribbean, production ranged
between 1,000 and 1,200 thousand tonnes over the period 1995/1996 to 2000/2001. Main regional
suppliers in 2001 were Cuba (66%), Jamaica (13%), Dominican Republic (12%). Also in Trinidad and
Tobago, after some decades of stagnation, citrus production witnessed a season of resurgence by the early
‘90s (tab.1). This was largely due to the planting of about 1200 ha of citrus by a public firm (Caroni
(1975) Ltd.) that boosted citrus production in order to strengthen domestic supply to the processing sector.

Table 1. Citrus production in T&T (metric tons)

Source: FAO

In the year 2000 there were 1,124 citrus farmers in Trinidad and 16 in Tobago and the majority of
farms (94.1%) can be classified as small-scale with land holdings of less than l0 ha (MALMR, 2000).
Only 4.9% of farmers have holdings of 11-40 ha. and 1% have holdings greater than 100ha.
Approximately 5,275 ha. of the 11,360 ha of land occupied by citrus farmers are cultivated in citrus. Of
the 5,275 ha cultivated in citrus, Caroni (1975) Ltd. has approximately 1200 ha and small farmers have
2700ha. The majority of citrus cultivation takes place in the counties of St. Patrick (40.5%); St. George
(14.5%); Caroni (13.1 %); St. Andrew (12.5%); Nariva (8%) and St. David (2.4%). Only 1.4% of citrus
farmers are found in Tobago.

There are two basic farming systems in citrus production - pure stand and mixed. The survey of the
citrus industry found that 52.4% of farmers cultivate citrus as pure stand orchards, 40.5% as mixed and 7.1
% have both pure stand and mixed stands. County St. Andrew and county St. David have respectively
about ninety percent (90.4%) and one hundred percent (100%) percent of farmers engaged in pure stand
cultivation. The other counties have between 30% and 63% farmers cultivating pure stand (Table 2).

Source: Hyacinth-Ash et al (2003).

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