Small poultry farmers are crying foul over the Government’s consideration to temporarily suspend the Common External Tariff (CET) and additional stamp duties (ASD) on imported leg quarters to make chicken more affordable to consumers.

The farmers agreed with Lenworth Fulton, president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), who has said such a decision would be a devastating blow to about 150,000 small farmers.

Jermaine Black, a poultry farmer in Linstead, St Catherine, told the Jamaica Observer that a suspension of the duties on leg quarters shouldn’t even be a thought. If this is approved, leg quarters will cost roughly half the price of whole chicken and locally produced leg quarters.

“Wi cyaa import chicken and man deh here a sell chicken. A madness dem a deal with. Dem shoulda have some likkle teams and if 10,000 pound of chicken needed, dem just go round and check the likkle farmer dem. The big farmers alone cyaa feed everybody. The small farmers play a big part too,” Black lamented.

“We just hear pon the news last week say chicken a guh up 10 per cent. This a guh set wi back because people nah guh wah buy nuff like before.”

Last week, Jamaica Broilers announced that it will hike the price of chicken meat by 10 per cent by the end of January. Continued cost increases for corn, soy, and a lot of other raw materials were blamed.

Black, who has been in the business since 2016, said prior to the hike, he sold one pound of chicken for $180. Now, that goes for $250, he said, while some farmers charge $300.

“When me buy a hundred and odd chicks, I spend all over $80,000. I used to get one baby chicken fi $112. Now, a $145 for one. For big grain of feed, I used to pay $1,800 (per bag), and for the fine grain, $1,900. Now, you have to call it say a $2,500 for one of the bag dem. If you a buy one of each, that a $5,000. The price gone up wicked,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“Imagine me weh all a buy 30, because roughly, a 28 bag feed 140 chicken,” he continued. “But me will buy a extra two bag just to have two over so mi can use to make the small chicken get bigger… get little more weight pon dem.”

Now, 30 bags of feed cost him about $75,000.

Fulton said that while larger poultry companies may withstand the impact, small farmers who are currently producing chicken for sale at $240 to $290 per pound will not.

Michael Mclish, operator of The Clucking Chicken Ja – located in Portmore, St Catherine, told the Sunday Observer that he would not be able to survice.

“The Government should also take into consideration that apart of us small farmers, there are also farm store owners where we purchase the very same chicks, feed and other products from, and this is how these owners are able to provide for their families. Making this decision will drive unemployment in our country and employment in the originating country,” he said.

Monthly, Mclish spends over $200,000 to keep his business in order.

“I operate two chicken coops; each holds 300 chickens, but I only do 200 max each. For 100 chickens, that’s 20 bags of feeding where the prices have increased four times in the space of two months, and the current price is at $2,430. So monthly I spend approximately $194,400 on chicken feed, $3,000 on gas for my water pump, $100 per bag for sawdust. I use 20 bags throughout the six weeks changing litter, water and electricity is $3,000 each.”

Mclish said it’s already hard doing production amidst the pandemic.

“Getting chicks is not always easy and with the increases in the last few months, I have to be budgeting ahead of the current prices so this would be a huge loss for me as it would effectively eliminate the market. Having to compete with the price of imported chicken would only rob me of recovering my investment and cause financial ruin.

“I currently sell chicken for $280 per pound for whole chicken, and $300 for mixed parts and that’s fairly reasonable, based on my understand of what the big organisations or what the corner shop would sell for.”

A third farmer, Wayne Thomas, told the Sunday Observer that the Government is doing away with the “grow what you eat, eat what you grow” message.

“This will have a huge impact. We have to think before we act. The Government should do a survey before they jump the gun because you have a whole lot of small farmers and contract farmers who borrow money to do business. If the farmer borrows money to do business and the chicken parts start coming in, their meat not going to sell. So, what happens then? The small farmers have a lot to do with the growth of this country,” he stressed.

“This is madness. They just act. The small farmer has to grow birds to send their children and feed themselves and run the household. How are they going to work out? Man get pay to truck water in communities where you don’t have pipe water, man get pay to cluck chicken, the small farmers make the shops run,” he added.

Charles Jr, who outlined a $50-million programme that will help farmers to buy feed, chicks, and medicine, and promised to look at issues affecting fertiliser price and driving up the cost of agricultural produce, said he will be negotiating with stakeholders in the poultry industry before making a final decision.

However, Mclish said young farmers should have been engaged to begin with, though it would not have made much of a difference.

“They could’ve given us a chance to show them just how much time and effort it takes for us to produce the chickens, the equipment we use that help to make the job a little easier, the many nutrients and boosters we ensure they have to be fresh and wholesome and overall, just the amount of investment it takes. This would allow them to reconsider their decision knowing there is a lot of reasons not to take this approach, but in the end, the Government will still do what they want,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Meanwhile, Black said he will be exhausting all options to ensure that he benefits from the investments he would’ve made in poultry, especially because the novel coronavirus pandemic brought on a dry spell.

“If nobody nah really want mine dem fi buy, and mi see dem a stay too long ina the fridge, mi affi go start jerk them pon Friday and Saturday out a mi gate and see if mi can sell dem. And if mi can sell a 25 pound, or a two or three every now and then to some wholesale or market people, a suh mi affi do it. Mi cyaa make this stop me from doing my thing,” he reasoned.