A new multi-stakeholder committee is seeking to turn the Giant African Snail (GAS), a pest that has plagued Trinidad and Tobago for 18 years, into a national opportunity.
The Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Sustainability (formerly the Faculty of Food and Agriculture) at The University of the West Indies (The UWI), St. Augustine, has convened the GAS Strategic Action Committee (GAS-SAC). The committee will guide the rollout of SCALe-UP, which stands for Sustainable Circular Applications Leveraging the Potential for Underutilization of the Giant African Snail for Climate-Resilient Agriculture and Enterprise Development in Trinidad and Tobago. The project is funded by The UWI Research and Development Impact (RDI) Fund.
The snail has damaged crops, threatened public health and added pressure on farmers across the country.
At the committee’s first working meeting on August 18, 2026, project Co-Lead and Invasive Species Consultant Dr. Marcus Ramdwar outlined a plan to convert a pest that has spread unchecked for nearly two decades into a driver of community enterprise. Possibilities range from valorised animal feed to new livelihood opportunities for farmers and collectors.
“This is about collective action, meaningful engagement, and strategic baiting,” Ramdwar said. “Farmers need to tackle this pest together, as neighbours, not in isolation. We have seen elsewhere in the world, in Kerala, India, for example, that organised, community-wide collection can bring populations down. We intend to build a concentrated model here in Trinidad and Tobago that shows real, visible impact.”
Central to the project’s public education strategy is the “match box theory,” a simple way of helping the public identify snail sizes. It is part of a broader push to change how communities perceive and respond to the snail.
The project also takes a One Health approach, addressing three connected public-health concerns:
- the safe use of snail-control baits
- the snail’s association with meningitis risk
- the use of empty shells as mosquito breeding sites when they collect standing water
GAS-SAC brings together academia, farming communities and government. Its members are Dr. Wendy-Ann Isaac (project lead), Ramdwar (co-lead), Professor Mark Wuddivira (co-lead), plant pathologist Dr. Augustus Thomas, Farmers Association President Ratna Kangal, and Rayard Khan of the Farmers Association and UFS. Representatives of The UWI’s Marketing and Communications Office, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Health, NAMDEVCO and the Tobago House of Assembly also sit on the committee.
Dr. Nigel Jalsa has also been invited to join. His RDI-funded research covers environmentally friendly snail bait and controlled-release fertiliser, and his inclusion opens the door to shared resources and closer collaboration between the two projects. His project aims to develop a snail bait that is less toxic than those currently used, with no loss in efficacy, and a range of fertilisers that cause fewer environmental problems, such as fertiliser runoff and microplastic pollution.
In the coming weeks, the project team will roll out a phased public engagement campaign. It will begin with outreach to the presidents of farming groups and the heads of Local Government and Regional Corporation councils. Face-to-face community meetings will follow in the areas most affected by the infestation.
The team also plans to build a visible demonstration model in a selected community, potentially including public parks and spaces, to show the impact of coordinated intervention. Activities were expected to begin in mid-to-late September 2026.