Na­tion­al Flour Mills Lim­it­ed (NFM) has ad­vised the gen­er­al pub­lic that the an­i­mal feed mar­ket is cur­rent­ly fac­ing short­ages of some feed types due to a num­ber of fac­tors in both the in­ter­na­tion­al and lo­cal op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ments.

In a re­lease, NFM not­ed that the com­pa­ny, like the oth­er two lo­cal feed sup­pli­ers, im­ports raw ma­te­ri­als for pro­duc­ing feed, not­ing that corn and soy­bean meal are bought di­rect­ly from in­ter­na­tion­al sup­pli­ers and wheat mid­dling is pro­duced as a by-prod­uct of flour pro­duc­tion.

The com­pa­ny not­ed: “Short­ages of corn and soy­bean meal are cur­rent­ly be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced due to an ex­tra­or­di­nary high lev­el of de­mand em­a­nat­ing from Chi­na re­sult­ing in the un­avail­abil­i­ty of load­ing ca­pac­i­ty at the ports in sup­pli­er coun­tries and a 3-4 week de­lay in ship­ments to T&T and neigh­bour­ing coun­tries.”

In ad­di­tion to sup­ply short­ages, NFM not­ed that the cost of corn, soy­bean meal and wheat have al­so risen sig­nif­i­cant­ly in the last two months.

Ac­cord­ing to the NFM, these de­lays have led to the un­avail­abil­i­ty of some feed prod­ucts on the lo­cal mar­ket.

The com­pa­ny said that it is work­ing to meet mar­ket de­mand, how­ev­er, it is un­able to ful­fil all of the ad­di­tion­al de­mand as a re­sult of oth­er lo­cal feed sup­pli­ers’ in­abil­i­ty to pro­duce their nor­mal quan­ti­ties.

It not­ed: “Feeds, which are heav­i­ly de­pen­dent on mid­dling, have al­so been af­fect­ed as cur­rent de­mand now out­strips the usu­al sup­ply from flour pro­duc­tion.”

NFM added that the cur­rent sup­ply dis­rup­tions are ex­pect­ed to be rec­ti­fied as raw ma­te­ri­als have start­ed ar­riv­ing with more ship­ments ex­pect­ed in ear­ly Jan­u­ary. It said that the sit­u­a­tion is like­ly to re­turn to nor­mal in the next two weeks once there are no fur­ther ship­ment de­lays.