There is no shortage of milk, Pine Hill Dairy (PHD) insisted on Thursday, despite the unavailability of certain milk products at some retail outlets and farmers’ grim outlook for milk production amid record heat levels.
Shafia London, country manager of Banks Holdings Limited, parent of the island’s sole milk processing plant, said there has been an uptick in the demand for milk during the past weeks and while PHD could not meet the current requests, it did notshamar mean that production had reached a crisis.
More Barbadians were buying milk and the influx of tourists created a bigger demand, she said.
London explained on Thursday, during a ceremony at the company, that from time to time, there were dips in the milk supply and the current situation was not out of the ordinary.
“There is a natural curve throughout the year; there are periods when you go high and go low. We don’t have a shortage. What we have is lower numbers,” she said. “It’s normal in terms of this is the period where it would dip. So every year, you do have these same concerns. What we have to be careful with is that the dip is not at a critical level where you are in a crisis; we are not there. But it’s a normal dip for us; it’s just that the percentage is below last year and we need to make sure we revert that. We are selling the same amount of milk at the Pine Hill Dairy level, but yes, we are seeing an increased demand that we are unable to meet.”
London did acknowledge that the PHD’s lows are “lower than usual, about 10 per cent lower”. She said various factors contribute to that.
“The feeding regime is one, the number of animals producing would be another one, and the impact of the weather [is another]. So, as you adjust, the production outputs would automatically respond. But we do need the additional animals to ensure that we can get above the levels that we are currently getting because there’s a variable that is very different from the last few years, which is the heat,” the BHL official said, adding that the predicting heat waves forecast for March, April and May were “a real concern”.
She said PHD had made a loan programme under which farmers could borrow as much as $50 000, with a small interest rate, to improve the infrastructure of their farms and purchase cooling devices for their animals.
London also said that while it would be difficult to increase production given the challenges the farmers were experiencing, she was confident PHD would be able to meet the demand in June when Barbados hosts the International Cricket Council’s Men’s T20 World Cup.
The dairy has entered into a purchasing agreement with main feed supplier Pinnacle Feeds which would allow farmers to get feed at a discounted rate, said London, adding that if the farmers can import the cows they need with the help of the government, the industry would be better able to meet consumer requirements.
She said: “We’ve had other global cricket matches and so on, so we could use those as benchmarks. And in those spheres, we have met the demand. There are also some internal processes that we are doing. We are going to be maximising our production volumes so that we reduce our losses. We would produce more at once as opposed to smaller runs, so, we’ll get more products coming out of the plant. So there are things we are doing as well to ensure we can meet that demand. It will be a strain, it will be a challenge, but I’m fairly confident we can meet it based on the benchmarks of other activities like the World Cup that has happened here before.”
Also at Thursday’s ceremony, President of the Barbados Beef and Dairy Farmers’ Association Annette Beckett explained that the farmers wanted to import 320 pregnant heifers which they needed “like yesterday”.
She said they were looking to invest about $2.6 million but were entitled to a 50 per cent rebate which they wanted increased since they were still paying off debt they incurred in importing cows in previous years.
Beckett said a paper explaining the industry’s dire straits was to be submitted to Cabinet. So far, the farmers have not received an update on the arrangement.
