‘Private investors should come forward to provide animal feed options’

The way is now clear for local and foreign investors to establish additional livestock feed mills in Barbados with at least one businessman having already started the process.

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Indar Weir says his ministry is prepared to fully back the efforts of any local investor who is willing to take up the opportunity in order to provide consumers and farmers with alternate options to the sole manufacturer – Pinnacle Feeds Limited.

“I don’t believe that the government can sustain putting in a price support.So we now have to look at how we can address issues for tariffs. We have to look at how we can increase more production of local feed either by the way of another mill or two,” Weir told Barbados TODAY.

“And we have to look at how much we can import to be able to re-freight the cost of locally-produced feed by getting feed that is competitive and create a space and a market for feed to become more competitive while we grapple with what is taking place globally,” the minister added.

He told Barbadians not to expect the government “to be able to do all of these things” and suggested that private investors need to come forward and take advantage of these opportunities.

“Were I still in the private sector, I would be exploring all now, how I can get into the feed market. And I am prepared to put all of the support that I can as minister behind all those people who want to come and get involved in the feed market. We need the competition and we need to expand the space,” he contended.

Minister Weir revealed that at least one investor was already in the process of setting up a new feed mill.

“I have had a request from one individual who is about to get started and that one individual whose name I would not disclose at this point in time, is doing all the preparations to be able to get going,” he disclosed.

He expressed disappointment that local investors are not queuing up to try to benefit from this new venture.

“Why is it that only one person would jump at this to be able to take advantage of the opportunities that are available in there, when there is space for more than one?That is the kind of thing that would attract the investment right now. It is also the kind of thing that would get you the returns on the investment because we certainly know for sure that people are looking for a better quality feed and better pricing on feed.”

However, Weir said a foreign entity had expressed interest to him regarding the feed producing opportunity.

The minister explained that whether the mills would be built from scratch or existing structures would be used and retrofitted, was up to the investor.

“I have also had conversations with farmers who I have told they should look at a model similar to what Rock Hard [Cement] did, where you bring in the feed by way of barges or however you can get it here and put it into a plant and then either bag it or transport it in bulk to the farms,” Weir stated.

But again he lamented that the response has been slow.

“People are not jumping to the opportunity as I thought they would have, but it is there,” he continued.

Minister Weir noted that the state-owned Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC) may play a role regarding the bigger issue of the sector benefiting from reduced duties.

He pointed out that the BADMC already has a state trade mechanism to it, where they import all of the poultry wings that are required and then do the distribution.

“So that’s another option to many of the things we may have to look at now to be able to benefit from the reduced duties and then let the free trade mechanism kick in to be able to control a lot of those things,” the minister suggested.

In early September, Managing Director of Pinnacle Feeds Jason Sambrano disclosed that the price of livestock feed sold to farmers would drop from 19 per cent to 11 per cent effective September 6.

Sambrano, who is also Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Roberts Manufacturing said the new price would last for three months as a result of price support by Government.

The senior official said the reduced price would redound to the benefit of livestock farmers and consumers with the Government now having extended its previous May to July price backing.

But when Minister Weir responded back then, he said he hoped “everybody” would keep their word and pass on the decrease to the consumers.

“The benefit would be to the consumer in the end, but equally I am happy to see that the livestock sub-sector is getting the support that we negotiated on its behalf,” he added.

Weir also assured farmers that they would not be “thrown to the wolves” after the three-month price support periodexpires. emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb