BEING myself a breadfruit enthusiast, I read with great interest Shivana Lal’s article on this topic in the Express.

There is so much talk about food security but little else. Why not start with breadfruit, which can truly feed a nation?

In 2014, The UWI hosted a breadfruit event which I attended. I introduced myself to the then-minister of agriculture Devant Maharaj and suggested that idle State lands in the foothills of the Northern Range be planted with breadfruit. Again, in 2016/17, I met Clarence Rambharat at the Horticultural Society’s annual show, and once more pleaded for putting down breadfruit trees nationwide.

I also met Prof Wayne Ganpat, head of The UWI’s Agriculture Department, himself an enthusiast, and was pleased to see that he recently planted 90 trees.

So at last something is happening. If we could achieve a surplus, industries will spring up. We could, for example, replace potato fries with breadfruit fries, as is being slowly done with cassava.

I myself have planted a dwarf variety called maafala breadfruit in my residential lot in Diego Martin and enclose a picture.

Of the eight billion people in the world, two billion are already starving. With wars and rumours of wars, food in the future could, like climate change, be a serious problem.

Let’s all plant.

E Norbert Ferreira