Pig farmers report improved sales

Pig farmers have reported improved sales during the last quarter of 2020, particularly in the month of December.

President of the Barbados Association of Pig Farmers, Henderson Williams said while farmers counted thousands of dollars in losses earlier this year as business took a significant hit from restaurant and hotel closures due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Barbadians resumed purchasing pork when the lockdown was lifted and continued the tradition of purchasing the meat to prepare dishes for the Yuletide season.

However, he told Barbados TODAY it is difficult to give exact statistics on pork sales at this time, given that the year is not yet over.

“We would have to wait to look at all of the numbers to give a good representation of statistics, because Bajans are still buying pork for Old Years into the New Year. There are parties that will still be taking place, maybe not with a large number of individuals but certainly, that is still going to be happening,” Williams said.

“The issues that we had with COVID kind of worked [themselves] out because as long as the places opened back up, if we look at the amount of slaughters in the various facilities, we recognise that the numbers are not very far off from what they were last year. September, October, and November numbers were pretty much on par with the rates that we had in 2019. So, if you look at that as an indication of what is going on in the market, it means that there is still a level of demand,” he added.

In May, Williams lamented that pig farmers were crying out as a result of rising expenses, as the market for pork had been chopped and processors closed their doors during the shutdown that began in March, leaving some farmers with a large number of overweight pigs. He said farmers had to find alternative means of getting the pork off their hands, including selling the meat at reduced prices.

At that time, Williams also reported that the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS) had been doing its best to assist pig farmers by selling bags of packaged pork at its Grotto, Beckles Road, St Michael headquarters at a significantly reduced cost.

“COVID made everybody unhappy, given the shutdown which was necessary to save lives. However, as long as that level of normalcy returned to the marketplace, people picked back up their level of consumption,” he reported.

“As you would know, given the environment, pig farmers would have produced based on demand for the season which was not far off from last year, even though the hotel industry may have been hit hard. One of the other things that you have to consider is that in some cases, specialty products may be imported for the hotel industry as well, so it might have impacted local production,” Williams added. (anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb)