With the price of meat and poultry set to increase in the coming weeks, livestock farmers in sections of Clarendon are justifying the hike but they believe the wrong people in the chain of supply are making all the profit.

The Observer Online visited a once-thriving chicken farm in Tweedside where hundreds of birds were being slaughtered weekly to supply the local and inter-parish markets.

The newsteam was greeted by empty chicken coops, cleaned and unused slaughter areas and an eerie quietness on the farm that once echoed with the chirping of chicks. The farm is operated by Dean Robert and his relatives.

Roberts said that the farm has taken several major blows since last year, starting with droughts and flooding and the ever-increasing cost of raising the animals to the point where they can be butchered.

The farm, at one point, had a functioning nursery and an area where thousands of birds were compartmentalised based on their age and readiness for slaughter.

According to Dean Robert, up to last year, he was slaughtering up to 800 birds per week and even then, it was difficult to keep the farm afloat with the cost of feed and other inputs climbing each week. At more than $2,000 per bag of feed and with him requiring hundreds of bags to feed thousands of chickens, he said the low profit is driving him out of business.

“We used to have chicken that we kill every week, now it gone down because the price of the feeding too tall and the people who buy them are not paying much,” he said.

Tracey-Ann Thompson, who operates along with Roberts, said that wholesalers and supermarkets pay $150 per pound for chicken, which comes at a loss to them. The shops, supermarkets and wholesale would then resell the animals at double the cost.

According to them, the people who raise the birds and spend the most are not the ones making the profit.

However, she said that when faced with either dumping the birds or selling at that price to recover some of their investment, they would choose the latter over the former.

Thompson also raises pigs and that too has taken a beating with the high cost to produce and low resale cost. She said that there is hardly any cost-cutting methods to get by.

Aside from high production, some personal tragedies and natural disasters have compounded the situation. Thompson said that her common-law-husband, who helped manage the operation, died with lots of cash for the business and it has not been recovered.

After struggling through a massive drought in the area, Tropical Storm Grace last year tore through the island killing thousands of chickens.

They want the cost of feeding to go down; a stable dollar – which would stabilise the price of some inputs; they want subsidies, or the very least removal of tax and fees on products used in farming, and insurance coverage.

In the meantime, Steven Williams, councillor candidate for the Ritchies Division in Clarendon is calling on the authorities to implement significant programmes that will maintain the integrity of the farming communities.

Williams is concerned that a number of small farmers have stopped using significant portions of their lands for agriculture as they are unable to keep up with the cost of production. He said meat and poultry farmers are faring no better.

Speaking with OBSERVER ONLINE, Williams said that he wants the government to develop programmes that would see farmers across the board getting greater assistance when cultivating new farms, existing farms, or raising animals.

“The Ritchies division is highly dependent on farming but our farmers are getting a real beating in these times. A bag of fertilizer is $11,000 … no, that is way too far. In going through the division, I found that a lot of the small farmers have lost hope and many of the big farmers have cut back,” he said.

He suggested that the Minister of Agriculture intervene in trying to source cheaper material to make fertiliser and feeds cheaper thereby reducing the cost to farmers.

“We can’t be saying every day that farming is the main backbone for the country and yet we are not providing for the farmers. If I am elected as councillor, I would set up a committee in the division to oversee farming to ensure that it is done right,” he said.