By Garwin Davis, Assistant News EditorTHE MINISTRY of Agriculture is contemplating dropping the 260 per cent duty on imported chicken parts following complaints that the massive levy increase, imposed several months ago, has not been benefiting local farmers.
Farmers say that a meeting called last Tuesday by the Ministry to address their concerns about being "short-changed" by both Jamaica Broilers and Caribbean Broilers, the two main suppliers of poultry meat, failed to resolved anything and has left "a bitter taste in our mouths".
"A number of farmers openly requested of the Ministry to drop the 260 per cent levy and open up the market," one farmer told The Gleaner on Saturday.
"As it is right now, the local farmers are not benefiting from the duty hike and customers are being short-changed. The processing companies have lost all credibility and the best thing the Ministry can do now is to open up the market by dropping the levy the people that benefit from having such a high duty on imports are the processing companies," he added.
The farmer described last Tuesday's meeting as very "stormy and heated", noting that the processing companies would not budge on the Ministry's request to pay the farmers more for their chickens.
"We were described as incompetent and told that we would not get a penny more," he said. "All we have been asking for is for them to be fair. We invest up to $10 million building these tunnel ventilation houses and have not been seeing the returns. Only a few farmers are surviving as the processing companies pay us whatever they feel like. They are accountable to nobody as was evident in the way they defied the Ministry on Tuesday."
The Government several months ago imposed a 260 per cent duty hike on imported chicken parts. It was done as a result of complaints from the local suppliers that the imports were flooding the market and was adversely affecting their businesses. As a part of the agreement to impose the duty increase, the processors had promised the Ministry that there would not be an increase in chicken prices and that they could adequately supply the market.
However, two weeks ago they reneged on the promise and imposed a 5 per cent increase on the price of chicken. The processors say they were forced into doing so as a result of the increase in the price of grain overseas.
Efforts to contact representatives of both Jamaica Broilers and Caribbean Broilers on Saturday were unsuccessful. Last week they, however, noted that the 260 per cent levy imposed by the Government had in fact saved the local industry from being flooded out by cheap imported chicken parts which they say were being dumped into the local market. Both companies add that a dropping of the duty would revert the market "back to square one" and would deal the industry and local farmers a "cruel blow."
