FALMOUTH, Trelawny — Even after replacing 250,000 of their birds with new stock, Jamaica Egg Farmers’ Association (JEFA) says this has not been enough to make up the fall-off in production by another 750,000 layers left traumatised by Hurricane Beryl. Farmers are now scrambling to meet customer demand.

“The egg industry has been going through a severe tightness on the supply side ever since the passage of Hurricane Beryl,” JEFA President Mark Campbell disclosed Tuesday.

He operates Campbell’s Egg Farm in Trelawny, Jamaica’s largest.

“We must remember that the birds are very sensitive to anything that disturbs their normal life. They respond negatively to anything that gives them stress or any form of trauma — and the storm did just that. They have not recovered from that,” Campbell added.

He said when the storm sideswiped Jamaica on July 3 last year, there were about a million layers in stock across Jamaica.

“The 250,000 new birds cannot compensate for the loss of production from the other 750,000 which were here and were directly impacted by the hurricane. So the country at this time, which is the peak demand time for eggs, is experiencing a shortage,” Campbell told the Observer.

He explained, however, that they have formulated a plan to address the issue.

“Going forward, earlier than usual, new birds will be coming into production early in the new year. We hope that that will be able to bring supply and demand closer in balance,” said Campbell.

Because JEFA had anticipated that the recovery would have happened by now, he was reluctant to provide a time frame for when production is likely to return to normal.

“We had predicted incorrectly that they [layers] would have recovered because we have seen cases before where they undergo some stress, and with the application of vitamins and other stimulants they have recovered. This time, they have not. The roughly one million laying birds that we have in Jamaica that experienced the storm, they have just not returned to the level of production we anticipated,” he said.

Campbell said his farm’s production is down by about 20 per cent. He has had to make adjustments.

“We have a tightness in supplying. No customer of mine is without eggs, but they cannot get in one delivery what they are asking for — we have to stagger the delivery. If someone is asking for, say, 300 cases of eggs, we will send 150 to them on Monday and give them the other 150 on Tuesday, or Wednesday if the first 150 can carry them for two days. That is how we have been juggling it for the past two months. Most of the farmers — those who have survived because some haven’t survived the hurricane, some are out — are doing the same thing,” he disclosed.

However, staggering comes at a cost to farmers.

“The cost of sale has gone through the roof because instead of delivering an order in one shot we have to do it two or three times; you are doubling or tripling your cost of delivery to them,” Campbell explained.