Some plants and animals species have became extinct over the years. Others, although not yet facing extinction, suffer from low population numbers, mainly due to overuse, changing conditions to their habitats or simply the climate change phenomenon.

The rapid decline in the island’s cattle population is cause for concern, with dairy cattle levels at crisis proportions, both with the number of farms and animals existing today.

Beef cattle production in Jamaica has also fallen sharply since the 1980s, and now, most large beef cattle farms have gone out of operation due to cheaper beef imports, shift from agriculture by bauxite mining companies like Reynolds Jamaica Mines, Kaiser Aluminium and Aluminium Company of Canada (Alcan) — all former companies which operated in Jamaica — scared of mad cow disease and the deregulation of the veterinary service coupled with poor land distribution policies bias to small crop farmers in agroparks.

The decline must be attributed to insufficient research from government facilities like Bodles Research Station, Montpelier Research Station and Minard Estate Jamaica, as well as a lack of emphasis on livestock production by Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) and the College of Agriculture, Science and Education (CASE).

A successful livestock industry depends on cheap and available sources of feed like grasses and there is no reason why our cattle and other ruminants should not be grass fed, especially, because imported grains such as corn and sorghum for poultry and animal feeds are costly with their imports valued at US$140 million currently.

Refocusing on the livestock industry could save millions of US dollars spent on importing beef and other meat proteins like canned fish, mutton and chicken back and neck. Jamaica imports 13 million kilogrammes of chicken back and necks in 2023, and spent US$20 million on mutton in 2022 which can be greatly reduced by placing more emphasis on ruminant production – cattle, goats, sheep and rabbits. Besides, there are a large number of trained cattle farmers throughout Jamaica, but they lack access to land.

Jamaica also has high levels of fish and fish products imports of which very little can done to reduce these foreign exchange expenditures because of the affordability to the poorer class in the country.

Salted fish import is about US$18.5 million. Tinned mackerel imports cost at US$15.6 million and sardines set the country back by US$15.5 million, according to the latest trade data. These level of importation are unsustainable but difficult to control because of overfishing and poaching in our waters by our neighbours from Central and South American countries, and these products are more affordable and have longer shelf life than other meat types.

It makes economic sense to concentrate on pasture development and preservation of local cattle breeds like Jamaica Red, Jamaica Black and Brahman for beef cattle resuscitation, since the country has the advantage from research and development from the work of TP Lecky and others like Karl Wellington, Jasmine Holness and others in cattle breeding and established nutrition research in various grasses and fodders by scientists like Dinsdale McCloud, Ray Hill, Paul Jennings and so on.

Many grass trials have been conducted locally over the years, notably among them are pangola, brachiaria, African star and Mombasa. However, there is no national pasture development programme which would be the hub of a ruminant expansion drive to make meat and milk more affordable and available especially to the vulnerable in the society.

Jamaica is currently exporting beef products like patties to Caribbean countries and North America and local beef would have beneficial effects on rural employment, import substitution and development in research and cattle genetic.

Government must play a more direct role in both the dairy and beef subsectors by initiating policies to drive research, make land available at reasonable rates, facilitate financial support through loans and grants and protect the neucleous herds for the established breeds( Jamaica Red, Black, Brahman and Jamaica Hope) Also to educate and train these landless cattle farmers that raise their animals on the streets and make land available to them on ruminant agro parks in the same way orchard crops and food types farmers are accommodated on agro parks.

The Jamaica Hope milk breed is heading for extinction while milk production fell from 40 million litres in the 1980s to about 12 million litres currently..

Jamaica Dairy Development Board in it cattle census of 2014 revealed that milk and milk products importation in 2012 and 2013 had a compounded value of US$101 million and these imports are growing, whilst the cattle industry continues to decline and the consuming public increasing with record of tourism arrivals and a large undernourished student population.

Although these import seem moderate, this economy cannot afford to spend foreign exchange unnecessarily on food that can be produced locally.

In the recent past, one of Jamaica newspapers carried a grim story of Jamaica Red Poll cattle dying of starvation and thirst at a foreign operated mining entity and with a government promised to act in the best interest of all concerned. But to date, the plan to preserve this valuable national treasure, Jamaica Red Poll cattle, is not yet announced and some dairy establishments have butchered Jamaica Hope with little years of productive life left in them.

These practices are trampling on decades of cattle genetic achievements of international recognition – it must stop and programmes be put in place to move the beef cattle population to 350, 000 and the dairy to 30,000 heads they were in the 1980s. The estimated amount of dairy cattle now is about 10,000 heads.

According to the 1996 agricultural census, there were 49,663 cattle holdings with 287,000 animals islandwide.

Since 2001 beef and milk production have been on the decline, with beef production moving from 14.01 million metric tonnes in the year 2000 to 6 million metric tonnes in 2014. Over this period, the number of cattle slaughtered fell from 60,302 to 22,455 in year 2014. Milk production declined from 23.77 million litres to 11.93 million litres over the same period.

The improvement in both beef and and milk production to levels obtained in the 1970s would afford the country to offer school children fresh milk as a part of their nutrition and avail grass-fed beef to consumers and hotel sector at competitive prices.

The cattle industry need not decline any further if government, cattle farmers, universities and colleges get involved in research, pasture development, breed preservation and public education to complement cattle shows at JAS events and Minard beef cattle show held annually in St Ann.

Lenworth Fulton is a former president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society.