Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

With lo­cal chick­en pro­duc­tion con­strained and de­mand for eggs con­tin­u­ing to rise, poul­try farm­ers are urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to boost the sup­ply of fer­tilised eggs and lay­ing birds to pre­vent fur­ther short­ages of eggs, chicks, and poul­try.

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram has an­nounced plans to es­tab­lish a gov­ern­ment hatch­ery to en­sure a re­li­able sup­ply of qual­i­ty chicks for lo­cal pro­duc­ers, with im­ports cur­rent­ly sourced from the Nether­lands and the Unit­ed States. How­ev­er, some farm­ers re­main con­cerned about the po­ten­tial costs.

Vi­jasy Bhag­wat, own­er of St Mary’s Hatch­ery, told Guardian Me­dia that hatch­eries are strug­gling to se­cure high-qual­i­ty fer­tilised eggs, with some re­port­ing loss­es of up to 35 per cent dur­ing in­cu­ba­tion. He not­ed that im­port­ing chicks from the Nether­lands could cost as much as $16 each, a price many farm­ers find un­fea­si­ble.

Ren Gopiesingh, own­er of Sofi and Liam’s Farm in Bar­rack­pore, ac­knowl­edged that Gov­ern­ment’s in­ter­ven­tion has helped re­duce poul­try feed costs but said farm­ers still face chal­lenges ac­cess­ing qual­i­ty fer­tilised eggs and chicks.

“Right now the eggs are in de­mand, and with Christ­mas com­ing, we need more eggs on the mar­ket,” he said.

While heat has af­fect­ed broil­er pro­duc­tion, Gopiesingh ex­plained that lay­ing hens re­spond bet­ter to high tem­per­a­tures, though egg sizes may be re­duced. He stressed that lo­cal­ly fer­tilised eggs and a gov­ern­ment hatch­ery could se­cure sup­ply and re­duce risks as­so­ci­at­ed with im­ports.

Re­call­ing a $300,000 loss af­ter 5,000 im­port­ed chicks from Bar­ba­dos de­vel­oped dis­ease, he said: “When the birds come in from abroad, some die, and when they reach the farm they are not healthy.”

Gopiesingh be­lieves Trinidad and To­ba­go has the ca­pac­i­ty to pro­duce its own high-qual­i­ty lay­er chicks.

“We have every­thing to gain from mind­ing lay­er chicks. They hatch the broil­ers, so it isn’t hard to hatch the lay­ers,” he said. He added that while re­duced feed prices are wel­come, in­creas­ing the num­ber of lay­ing birds is crit­i­cal to meet­ing fu­ture de­mand.

Rati­ram con­firmed that the Min­istry is pur­su­ing a Pub­lic-Pri­vate Part­ner­ship (PPP) to es­tab­lish a large-scale poul­try breed­ing and hatch­ery fa­cil­i­ty. “The pro­posed fa­cil­i­ty is in­tend­ed to pro­duce fer­tile eggs, breed­er stock, and day-old chicks lo­cal­ly for both the broil­er and lay­er in­dus­tries,” he said. The ini­tia­tive aims to re­duce de­pen­dence on im­ports, strength­en biose­cu­ri­ty, con­serve for­eign ex­change, cre­ate jobs, and safe­guard against sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions.

Rati­ram not­ed that the Min­istry is al­so man­ag­ing risks posed by High­ly Path­o­gen­ic Avian In­fluen­za (HPAI) in in­ter­na­tion­al sup­ply chains. He ex­plained that im­ports are per­mit­ted from ap­proved dis­ease-free zones, in line with World Or­gan­i­sa­tion for An­i­mal Health (WOAH) stan­dards, bal­anc­ing an­i­mal health pro­tec­tion with sup­ply needs.

He cau­tioned, how­ev­er, that sim­ply in­creas­ing the num­ber of egg farms will not elim­i­nate short­ages, em­pha­siz­ing the need for a com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach to poul­try pro­duc­tion.