James Paul, the head of the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS), has sounded a strong call for protection of the island’s pork industry from imports, declaring the industry on the verge of collapse if immediate action is not taken to save it.
The BAS chief executive officer and members of the Barbados Pig Farmers Association met for an urgent meeting at the Radisson Hotel over the weekend to discuss negative trends affecting the industry.
Paul noted a decline in the number of pigs slaughtered since 2019, where 6 000 fewer pigs have been slaughtered locally compared to five years ago. He added that this situation, in addition to the tariff situation being seen at the port where some foreign pork products are not being taxed appropriately, makes the entire industry an unsustainable one.
“The tariff is something we need to examine in order to ensure that we do not have a situation where we give an opportunity for importers to bypass the current levels of tariffs to bring in imported pork, which would then put our local pork producers at a disadvantage.
“We know that there had been a cut out made previously, where some pork has been coming in at 20 per cent; we really think whether or not that pork is coming in from CARICOM or non-CARICOM entities, we want the [full] tariffs to be applied.”
He added it was the view of farmers that Customs and other stakeholders need to crack down on the practice of pork being mislabeled in order to avoid the appropriate tariff, as the current situation is leading to local farmers being priced out of the market.
“We expect our border protection, which is the Customs, to be vigilant in ensuring that whatever comes into this country, is in the appropriate category to be taxed and that we don’t have a situation where people are bringing products into this country and putting them under some other different tariff heading, where they will get lower rates of taxation,” he said.
The BAS boss also hinted at growing concerns among farmers that a new agreement which was pushed last year between Massy and Sundale companies, who are “some of the main buyers of Barbadian pork”, has been negatively affecting farmers profits, particularly given the fact, that the promised subsidy of $2 million to the poultry sector which was announced by Prime Minister Mia Mottley some two years ago has not been paid.
Given these concerns, a meeting with all stakeholders in the industry is being planned, Paul added.
“[We] looked at what the buying arrangements are in terms of Sundale, and we are looking to form a response to Massy to ask them also to consider alternative options. The farmers as well have their actions that they are going to undertake in order to organise themselves better.
“That is something that we are going to have a further meeting [on] in about a week’s time, where some hard proposals will come, in which we will communicate with Massy itself, also the Ministry of Agriculture, Minister of Agriculture and the Prime Minister, in terms of trying to look at other options that we want to be facilitated.”
