Collaboration between the public and private sector alongside small planters for harnessing opportunities in the agricultural sector and the Ocean State for a win-win situation on the social, economic and environmental fronts. This was the gist of the address of the Minister of Agro-Industry, Food Security, Blue Economy and Fisheries, Dr Arvin Boolell, today.
He was speaking at the launch of the ENL Group's tea plantation venture in Valetta in presence of the Ministry's Junior Minister, Mr Gilles Fabrice David, the Junior Minister of Finance, Mr Dhaneshwar Damry, the Chief Executive Officer of the ENL Group, Mr Gilbert Espitalier-Noël and other personalities.
Minister Boolell commended the initiatives of the ENL Group for embarking, through Kenyan expertise, on tea cultivation in Valetta which he recalled is a humid and acidic land requiring less fertilisers and is suitable for this type of plantation.
The Minister reiterated Government's commitment, as stipulated in Government Programme 2025-2029, to consolidate the agricultural and food production sector in ways that support higher levels of local production while highlighting the importance of modernising and upgrading of skills to enhance these sectors of economic activities.
Dr Boolell also spoke of providing additional facilities to tea planters and encouraged more synergy among planters and stakeholders such as FAREI to boost the sector. Speaking on South-South cooperation, he pointed out that a team from Uganda is expected in Mauritius to share their knowledge for better capacity building.
The Chief Executive Officer of the ENL Group emphasised on the redynamisation of the tea industry with the support of the public sector and planters to meet local market demands. The ENL Group, he mentioned, will act as a facilitator for small planters by providing them tea seedlings and support them with mechanised tea harvest methods. The Group will closely collaborate with the three existing tea factories in the country, he underscored while expressing optimism for better tea exportation through efficient marketing strategies.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of ENL Agribusiness, Mr Olivier Baissac informed that the tea cultivation project which will expand to over 500 arpents in Valetta within six years with an investment of Rs 160 million. The first phase involved importing 600,000 cuttings from Kenya, with a portion currently housed in greenhouses before being transplanted across 62 arpents.
