SHAS­TRI BOODAN

There are plans to boost lo­cal pro­duc­tion of meat from goat and sheep by next year from 355 tonnes to 680 tonnes.As a re­sult, lo­cal pro­duc­tion will ac­count for twen­ty per cent of con­sump­tion, Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj said on Tues­day, when he ad­dressed a live­stock dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny at the Cen­teno An­i­mal Quar­an­tine Sta­tion. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 sheep and goats were giv­en to farm­ers at a sub­sidised cost dur­ing the func­tion.

"Con­sump­tion of live­stock prod­uct is in­creas­ing at a rapid rate at the lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el. Eat­ing habits now show a marked in­crease in the con­sump­tion of an­i­mal pro­tein," Ma­haraj said.He added that lo­cal pro­duc­tion of goat milk will be in­creased by one hun­dred per cent to re­place im­port­ed goat milk and pro­vide an al­ter­na­tive sup­ply of lo­cal­ly pro­duced milk.

Ma­haraj said pro­vi­sion­al da­ta from the Cen­tral Bank showed that for the first time in 40 years the agri­cul­ture sec­tor ex­pe­ri­enced five con­sec­u­tive quar­ters of growth. He said the Sum­ma­ry of Eco­nom­ic In­di­ca­tors for Sep­tem­ber 2013 showed that growth for the first three quar­ters of 2013 re­mained pos­i­tive and steady.The min­is­ter added: "There has been a two per cent re­duc­tion in the food im­port bill from 2010 to 2013 and the food in­fla­tion rate al­so con­tin­ues to be sin­gle dig­its at 3.2 per cent in Jan­u­ary."