Minard Estate up for divestment
Cattle expenses dragging down bottom line of Agro-Invest Corp
Published:Wednesday | December 15, 2021 | 12:09 AMChristopher Serju/Senior Gleaner Writer
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The 1,000-acre Minard Estate in Brown’s Town, St Ann, is up for divestment because of high operational costs and diminished income generation. The estate is operated under the auspices of Agro-Invest Corporation (AIC), a business-facilitation unit...
The 1,000-acre Minard Estate in Brown’s Town, St Ann, is up for divestment because of high operational costs and diminished income generation.
The estate is operated under the auspices of Agro-Invest Corporation (AIC), a business-facilitation unit within the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries,
Chief executive officer of AIC, Dr Al Powell, disclosed the privatisation plans on the sidelines of the Tuesday’s Mango Agro-Park investor breakfast meeting at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston.
Powell told The Gleaner that he had initiated proceedings for the divestment of the property, which is home to one of the last remaining herds of Jamaica Black cattle, because the operations no longer fit in with the mandate of the AIC.
He said he had advised Permanent Secretary Dermon Spence, in correspondence last week, of the board’s intention to jettison the property.
“We have three breeds that we have to maintain – Jamaica Black, Jamaica Red Poll, and Jamaica Brahman, but it is costing a lot and it doesn’t fit strategically in our agro park management because our main term of reference is to put all idle lands into Jamaica into production. So we are going full-fledged to get idle lands into production and we are leaving behind the cattle,” Powell said.
Maintenance of the herds consumes between 12 and 14 per cent of the AIC’s annual budget, translating to $18 million to $20 million, said Powell.
The majority of that expenditure is directed to the maintenance of pastures and fencing, as well as water for irrigation and the feeding of the animals.
Minard generates very little money from the sale of calves born on the property, but nothing from events such as the annual beef and livestock festival, returns from which go directly to the organisers.
Failure to offload the property, which hosts the annual Minard Livestock Show & Beef Festival, will see the Bodles Research Station in St Catherine being asked to take over operations at the estate.
However, the AIC is also mulling a proposal for a 20-year lease from an investor who Powell declined to name.
Powell said further that the AIC was incapable of continuing to care and preserve the Jamaica Black breed.
“We have made it very clear that we want technical support from the ministry elsewhere to make sure that anybody who takes it over, that breed is maintained. We don’t have the expertise, the know-how in-house to do that, so the ministry is helping with that,” the CEO said.
Meanwhile, the first five investors in the Mango Agro-Park collected their lease contracts from the organisation on Tuesday and were charged by Powell to get their operations up and running by March.
By then, it is expected that each of the investors would have planted out at least 80 per cent of their 50-acre plots in Julie and East Indian mango seedlings.
At least 15,000 seedlings will be needed in the early stage of the project, with that demand rising to about 10,000 by the time the initiative fully gets off the ground.