WESTERN BUREAU:
WHILE SOME farmers in particular sub-sectors are predicting a positive turn in 2003, gloom and despair continues to be echoed throughout the beef industry that sees no conclusion to the recession that tethered the industry for several years. "Things are gloomy at the end of 2002 with no end in sight", said Dr. Karl Wellington, chairman of the Jamaica Red Poll Breeders Society.
" I believe we need now a rescue operation for our native cattle breeds and this is one thing, which we in the Breed Societies will be working on. But, for the industry on a whole, we need also to have an actual movement with respect to the modern slaughter and processing facility that we have been discussing for far too long". The establishment of a modern abattoir and processing plant is being championed as the catalyst to re-energising the beef industry. "That will be the catalyst for farmers to realise that we need to go back into rescuing our breeds, maintaining our pasture and upgrading our cattle".
According to the Breed Society Chairman, a new spectre that now hangs over the industry is the tremendous increase proposed in property taxes. Adding to that, he said, are the announcements of the increases in input costs which all farmers are going to be facing early in this new year, particularly those who operate motor vehicles, tractors and other farm equipment. " It is not going to be pretty but we still have hope and the hope lies mainly upon our getting a movement with respect to the processing facility, which will eventually be owned by the farmers,", he told Farmers Weekly.
Dr. Wellington, a Jamaica Livestock Association (JLA) director, is calling on Breeders Societies to hold on to the cattle breeds we have because if we lose them they are not available elsewhere. " None of our four main breeds, including the Jamaica Hope dairy cattle can be bought from any other countries if we lose it we lost it forever. So, I am appealing to farmers to hold on to what we've got." A market study and cattle census will shortly be done to arrive at an appropriate size for the proposed modern meat processing facility. According to Dr. Wellington, the cattle population has dwindled considerately as a number of farmers have not been breeding their cattle. " We might very well go ahead and build a plant that becomes a white elephant if we do not have the number of animal to go through it. So we are working on that side of things, getting the cattle census done hopefully within the first quarter of this year to get to a better feel for what size facility to start with.
Another bugbear is the financing of the slaughtering and processing facility. " Financing is going to be one of the issues which we are going to have to address right up front, how are we going to finance this thing? We have been talking to the [Agriculture] Minister and his team and there is some acceptance of the idea, Dr. Wellington said.
