where he joined the Merchant Navy. He spent eleven years working on tankers in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and South America <strong>—</strong> far from verdant and fertile Moruga. He returned to Trinidad in 2003, launched his own marine services company, and took up residence near Port of Spain. Rice farming was the furthest thing from his mind. After speaking with his uncles at the time of his father’s illness, Forgenie started exploring the reasons why hill rice had declined so badly, and sought to rediscover for himself the art of rice farming. His first stop was the farm of Miss Patrice, an eighty-six-year-old woman. “I was working for myself, so I had the time,” Forgenie says. “For two months, I would drive down on a weekend, stay at my family’s house in Basse Terre, and go see what Miss Patrice was doing. Soon enough, I realised that rice work is so labour intensive, it just turns you off.” “The tradition was, from the start of December through January we would eat rice on a Sunday,” says Mark Forgenie But he was not dissuaded. Inspired by what his father’s neurosurgeon had told him about the benefits of hill rice, Forgenie felt he had to do something. “Dr Maharaj never did the research, but had anecdotal evidence from his stroke patients who used the rice as a porridge every morning and evening as part of their therapy. He said they recovered in half the usual time, and ninety per cent of them recovered. I realised there was a medical and scientific thing about this rice, that’s not like other rice.” So, since 2009, when his father had that stroke, Forgenie <strong>—</strong> supported by his wife Cassie <strong>—</strong> has been literally travelling the world to find ways to make the farming of Moruga hill rice more efficient and profitable. He set up Vista Dorado Estates on his family’s land, with the belief that farming could be made easier if there was equipment suited to the hilly terrain of Moruga. “I knew the answer was mechanisation, but there was no research about it. I went to the Ministry of Agriculture and they said they tried it, but they failed.” He was told by ministry officials that he should expect to fail as well, as there was no equipment on the market that could help. Forgenie was amazed at the negativity. However, once you meet Mark Forgenie, it doesn’t take long to recognise that he’s passionate, determined, and extremely astute. After failed experiments with local heavy equipment distributors, Forgenie sat down and drew a model of the kind of equipment he felt was needed for the terrain in Moruga. His quest for the right equipment took him to China, where he met with a company who bought one of his designs. They were so impressed, they took it into mass production, and Forgenie is now the <strong>Caribbean</strong> distributor. Having solved that part of the equation, it was all systems go. The Forgenies set out their plans for getting Moruga hill rice into the mainstream, via their company <strong>Caribbean</strong> Sea and Air Marketing. They worked closely with government agencies, and developed highly positive relationships with the Intellectual Property Office and ExportTT, Trinidad and Tobago’s national export facilitation agency. ExportTT helped the Forgenies with courses in key areas like the principles of packaging and labelling. And in 2018, <strong>Caribbean</strong> Sea and Air Marketing received a TT$317,000 grant from the Ministry of Trade to improve technology in their manufacturing process. “As an outsider, someone who never grew up in Moruga, I wondered, why is this rice not on the shelves?” says Cassie Forgenie. “We had to package the rice professionally, because traditionally, it was sold in a paper bag at the San Fernando Market.” She explains that a major turning point came at T&T’s 2018 Trade and Investment Convention, one of the biggest trade shows in the <strong>Caribbean</strong>. Here the Forgenies met with officials from S.M. Jaleel, a beverage company that sells their drinks up the <strong>Caribbean</strong> and through the <strong>Caribbean</strong> diaspora. The result was an international distribution agreement for Moruga hill rice. You can now find Vista Dorado Moruga hill rice on the shelves at all major supermarkets in T&T. I’ve tried the rice myself, and I can attest to its delicious nutty flavour, particularly enhanced when cooked with coconut milk and bay leaf. Vista Dorado’s lineup includes plain rice as well as varieties flavoured with geera, lemon pepper, and even Scorpion pepper, for adventurous types. You can also try that healthy porridge, made with ground rice flavoured with cocoa, nutmeg, and other spices. A small cookbook is in the works. After the Forgenies received their government grant, an editorial in the T&T Newsday called it “a healthy serving of good sense, reminding us of how our unique place in the world, our unique history, can be leveraged as a resource to return us to the path of economic growth.” Plus, Moruga hill rice is delicious <strong>—</strong> a winning formula in the ongoing campaign to make the most of indigenous <strong>Caribbean</strong> foodways. n 48 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
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