Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go Farm­ers’ Union pres­i­dent Shi­raz Khan has warned that the cur­rent chick­en short­age could re­cur with­in the next six to 12 months if Gov­ern­ment and stake­hold­ers fail to ad­dress long­stand­ing is­sues in the poul­try sec­tor.

Khan stressed that the prob­lem did not arise overnight, not­ing that farm­ers have been rais­ing con­cerns since ear­ly 2025.

He added that chal­lenges in­ten­si­fied af­ter bird flu was de­tect­ed in the Cay­man Is­lands last De­cem­ber, forc­ing lo­cal farm­ers to adopt stricter biose­cu­ri­ty mea­sures such as in­stalling fine mesh around pens to pre­vent wild birds from en­ter­ing.

De­spite re­peat­ed ap­peals for as­sis­tance, Khan said farm­ers con­tin­ue to strug­gle.

While re­cent high tem­per­a­tures have added pres­sure to poul­try pro­duc­tion, he ar­gued that the short­age can­not be blamed sole­ly on the weath­er.

“We could have avoid­ed this if agri­cul­ture—and the poul­try in­dus­try in par­tic­u­lar—was treat­ed with se­ri­ous­ness,” he said.

Khan high­light­ed ris­ing costs, with med­ica­tion prices in­creas­ing by 25 to 30 per cent, along­side heavy de­pen­dence on im­port­ed eggs and birds.

Farm­ers, he said, are now plac­ing few­er chick­ens in pens due to the heat and es­ca­lat­ing costs. Mea­sures such as mis­ters, sprin­klers and ad­just­ed feed­ing times can help, but with­out a long-term plan, he warned, short­ages will per­sist.

He de­scribed the cur­rent re­sponse as a “fire­fight­ing sys­tem,” where ac­tion is tak­en on­ly af­ter prob­lems emerge.

For­eign ex­change chal­lenges, he added, have fur­ther bur­dened farm­ers, who are pay­ing more to im­port chem­i­cals, med­ica­tion, and birds.

Khan urged a shift to­ward self-suf­fi­cien­cy, stress­ing that food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty must be treat­ed as a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty.

“If a child can­not get a nu­tri­tious meal—pro­tein se­cu­ri­ty in this coun­try—then we have a prob­lem with our fu­ture,” he said.

He called for an agri­cul­tur­al pol­i­cy fo­cused on cit­i­zens and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to meet di­rect­ly with farm­ers.

Be­yond poul­try, Khan ex­pressed con­cern about the dairy sec­tor, par­tic­u­lar­ly the fu­ture of Nestlé’s Val­sayn plant.

While an ex­ten­sion has been grant­ed, he crit­i­cised lim­it­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion from both Gov­ern­ment and Nestlé. He warned that the do­mes­tic dairy in­dus­try is weak­en­ing, as milk con­tin­ues to be im­port­ed from Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos, the Unit­ed States, New Zealand, Hol­land, and oth­er coun­tries.

Se­cu­ri­ty is­sues al­so weigh heav­i­ly on farm­ers, es­pe­cial­ly in Las Lo­mas and Fe­lic­i­ty. Khan ques­tioned whether pro­posed po­lice posts would be ad­e­quate­ly re­sourced, not­ing that one farmer re­cent­ly lost eight cows to thieves. He said some farm­ers are now sell­ing their live­stock out of fear.

Khan em­pha­sised that the chick­en short­age should be seen as part of a broad­er agri­cul­tur­al cri­sis.

“We’ve got to be think­ing 2030 in 2026—or even 2040,” he said, urg­ing im­me­di­ate plan­ning to en­sure farm­ers have the sup­port and in­fra­struc­ture need­ed to feed the na­tion in the years ahead.