Blackbelly sheep-rearing project making progress

A joint venture to rear Barbados Blackbelly sheep in Guyana is progressing well, the project’s expert said Friday, with the first phase of exporting 1 000 sheep to Georgetown to be completed in weeks.

Just over 700 sheep have already been sent to Guyana and the remainder are due to be shipped by the end of May, the project’s consultant, Dr Leroy McClean told Barbados TODAY.

“They will be distributing the sheep to a number of farmers,” he explained. “The Guyana Livestock Development Agency will also retain some for breeding for further distribution to farmers.”

The overall goal of the Blackbelly Sheep Expansion Project is to rear a million sheep between the two countries, starting with Barbados exporting 1 000 to Guyana initially and increasing the population there, given the Caribbean neighbour has the land, forages, water and other elements required to expand the flock.

At the same time, Barbados is to undertake a “rapid” expansion programme of its own.

“Once we have critical mass… we can then start slaughtering,” said Dr McClean. “[The Guyanese] have already constructed a new abattoir in Region Five where most of their livestock would be… and once the sheep are slaughtered in Guyana, carcasses would be returned to Barbados where then you would have the specialty cuts, and Barbados would be used as a hub for distribution of lamb which would be for the hospitality sector here. Once we are up to the numbers for export, we can export.”

It costs Barbados $14 million to import 1.3 million kilogrammes of lamb per year, mainly from New Zealand.

Dr McClean calculates that when the imported and local production are combined, the retail value amounts to $24 million.

“It is a significant economic value given the quality of the lamb and the demand for it…. There is nobody that I know of who has tasted the Blackbelly lamb and didn’t want it again. There is a high demand for it. That’s why we are trying to push the industry as much as possible,” he said.

The consultant said the initial goal is to try to meet that quantity and once they have been able to eliminate or put a substantial dent in the imports, they can then look at exports. But Barbados will have to satisfy the phytosanitary requirements of countries such as the United States to export lamb there, he added.

“We have to screen the population to make sure there are no cases of bluetongue or scrapie…particularly scrapie, which is a disease that you can get in sheep. We have never had any cases in Barbados, but we have never done the scientific research to prove that it is not here,” he said.

“So, that is part of the programme, to establish that we are scrapie-free, which would then permit us to be able to export lamb to places like the United States.”

He also identified the Caribbean, South America and the UK as countries on Barbados’ export radar.

“But all this depends on having the correct sanitary and phytosanitary things in place in order to do this. That is something that is being worked on. We have started screening the population for bluetongue, and we hope to soon start screening it for scrapie.”

Bluetongue is a non-contagious viral disease of sheep that is transmitted through the bite of flies. Scrapie is a fatal brain disease of sheep and goats. Among the key symptoms of the disease are irritation and changes in an infected animal’s posture and behaviour. Neither disease is known to affect humans. 

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb