Rising feed prices put farmers on chopping block

As the price of chicken, pork, and beef steadily increases, St Catherine-based farmer and business operator Roy Jumi is watching his customer base being gradually eroded.

Jumi, the managing director of Triple K Enterprise Butchery and Cold Storage in Spanish Town, St Catherine, spoke to The Gleaner moments after the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries advised that the price of pork and pork products would be increased by between 13 to 20 per cent. This comes as a result of an approximately 28 per cent increase in the cost of feeds.

Jumi said that pork is currently sold, on average, for about $390 per pound, depending on the cut, a purchase a customer could have made at a rate of $320 per pound in January.

“The price of pork for the last two to three months has gone up above 25 to 30 per cent. Not only has it gone up, but you just cannot get supplies. Most small farmers are kind of backing out because the price of feed is going up,” he lamented.

He said farmers’ interest has waned because after purchasing the feeds at the increased cost, they are not able to get sufficient sales.

“A lot of people are not working, so we don’t have a lot of customers like first time. Since the middle of last year, you just see customers now fortnight or month end,” he said.

With the price of chicken set to increase for a third time since the start of the year, Jumi, like several farmers, believe that the two major suppliers of animal feed, Nutramix and Hi-Pro Feeds, could absorb some of the cost. Currently, he feels that only small business owners and consumers are feeling it in their pockets.

He also thinks the Government could assist by making more farm lands available for grain production.

“We have a lot of labour here, a lot of labour. We have the climatic condition, [and] we have water. We could plant corn to support ourselves, just like how we could plant rice to support ourselves rather than looking to overseas. As you hear the climate change in America, you hear the price of corn gone up, so people have to pay more for it,” he argued.

UNWILLING CUSTOMERS

But farm worker Lurline Bonner said customers are generally not willing to pay more for the eggs and other meat products her boss produces on his farm in Dover district, Kitson Town, St Catherine. Although the main suppliers of grains have increased chicken feed several times since the start of the year, the price of eggs, for example, has remained at $750 per tray throughout.

“You can’t raise it like how them raise it, enuh, because you would never get a sale, so you have to just leave it like that,” Bonner told The Gleaner, adding that even with the price remaining constant, the sale of eggs dipped this week.

“It come on the news say farmers supposed to raise by 20 to 30 per cent because the corn going up on that, but it is not so easy,” she said.

A number of the farmers in the community surrounding the farm are crying, said Bonner, as several of the places that used to purchase eggs and other farm products are no longer in operation. All effort is being made to make the remaining customers happy.

“The buyers them a complain that it is too high, so we have to just work with it. You are losing still, enuh, but you can’t keep the eggs because if you keep the eggs too long, it is going to spoil, so it is better you sell it for that more than lose all of it,” she reasoned.

Another farmer nearby said the reality is that the demand for eggs is at an all-time low. Several poultry farmers have since emptied their hen houses as they can no longer manage to feed their chickens and have no way of storing their eggs.

“The big man can cold-storage him thing and stick it out because him have a whole lot of resources, but a little small man that have nothing, him have to try sell them,” said the farmer.

nadine.wilson@gleanerjm.com