Barbados poultry farmers losing $1 mln a month

Recently at a Barbados Egg & Poultry Producers Association (BEPPA) emergency meeting, a majority of the more than 100 gathered farmers voted to take action.

Nation News reports that the meeting became very heated, so much so that immediate past president Carlyle Brathwaite advised poultry farmers to shut down the industry in order to get the government to listen.

“Put the chicken in the freezer and shut the freezer! Close down all the cold storage outlets and notify the government that we cannot sell at a loss. Within 24 hours the store shelves would be empty and we would get a meeting,” he said.

BEPPA president Wendell Clarke was reportedly not in favour of the as he said that such action would take planning and strategy and was not being considered as yet.

He said he was assured by the ministries of Agriculture and Trade that the government would be looking at the plight of poultry farmers when Cabinet meets.

In his address, Clarke said that he was confident that the government would either remove the price cap on whole chicken or raise it to match the hike in feed prices as they had “no other choice”.

It is reported that in February, Pinnacle Feeds, Barbados’ lone animal and poultry feed supplier, raised the prices of animal and poultry feeds by $25 per mt in response to world price increases in corn and soya beans.