Adequate chicken supply for Christmas, says Green

Consumers can expect an adequate supply of chicken meat for the Christmas season, as the poultry sub-sector rebounds from the impact of Hurricane Beryl, according to Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining Floyd Green.

“I want to assure people, based on the placements that we have made, [that] we will have a well-supplied Christmas with chicken meat. Rest assured [that] we are working with the farmers [to increase the production levels],” Green said while addressing the launch of the Caribbean Broilers (CB) Group’s tropical broiler system at Hill Run Farms on Friday.

The minister said that, since 2014, Jamaica’s broiler production has surged by 25 per cent, growing from 110 million kilogrammes to 138 million kilogrammes, making the country self-sufficient in chicken meat.

Green said the sector is projected to grow by 3.4 per cent this year.

“We don’t import table eggs,” he added, highlighting the significant increase in egg production from 166 million in 2016 to 255 million.

Headlines Delivered to Your Inbox

Sign up for The Gleaner’s morning and evening newsletters.

“When we take the right policy decisions around agriculture, we can see the growth, we can see the sustainability, and we can feed ourselves,” he added.

He also lauded the CB Group for investing in technologies to combat climate change, including a partnership with United Kingdom-based Devenish to establish a research facility aimed at enhancing broiler performance in tropical climates.

“We can have the capacity to do the research needed to craft a new agriculture system,” he concluded.