Commodities fund backs mutton production project in Jamaica
Published:Friday | November 26, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Avia Collinder, Business Writer
Jamaica is opening a J$204 million window next year to finance local production of mutton, which is popular on dinner plates but is mostly imported at high cost of more than a billion dollars.
With US$2.37 million of backing from a United Nations-sponsored commodities fund, the Ministry of Agriculture hopes to boost sheep and goat meat production by 25 per cent. Goat meat is also called chevon.
The project, being spearheaded by the Research and Development (R&D) Division of the agriculture ministry, is part of a US$4.031-million Diversification of the Caribbean Livestock Sector through the Production of Small Ruminants programme being implemented by the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute and which also includes Trinidad and Tobago.
The wider project is the Carib-bean Development Bank, the governments of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC), a UN intergovernmental financial institution which supports the improvement and diversi-fication of the production and trade of commodities mainly in develo-ping countries.
The money is a grant, which is the form that the majority of CFC funding is said to take.
Most projects funded by the CFC are intended to address issues pertaining to commodities, including productivity improvement, quality enhancement, product diversification, research, technology transfer, trade financing, marketing and trading risks, among others.
Last year, Jamaica spent J$1.03 billion on chevon and sheep meat imports, a 42 per cent jump over five years. The peak year for imports was 2007, when J$1.2 billion worth of mutton and chevon were bought from overseas markets.
Production of the meats, however, has fallen from 12.3 per cent of total consumption in 2005 to 8.8 per cent in 2008, while total consumption has risen by 25 per cent in the same period.
Head of the agriculture ministry's Research and Development Division, Dr Marcia Blair, told the Financial Gleaner that while the small ruminant industry has shown increased production between 2007 and 2009, consumption has also increased, with imports accelerated to match demand.
In 2009, of the 4.9 million kg of mutton consumed locally, 4.8 million kg was imported.
The CFC-funded project is expected to add 3,700 breeding females of superior genetic quality to the national herd after the first four years, adding a further 5,000 in the next four years.
The listed deliverables of the regional eight-year project include an increase in the availability of quality breeding stock, develop-ment and expansion of herds at the Ministry of Agriculture R&D Division's small ruminant centre in Hounslow, St Elizabeth, and a corresponding centre in Trinidad, plus seed stock multiplication and distribution to farmers.
The herd development will include the use of artificial insemination and embryo-transfer technologies.
Other project deliverables include transfer of technology in the use of improved feeds and feeding systems and efficient management techniques to improve animal productivity, as well as residential training programmes in sheep and goat husbandry and management.
In Jamaica, this will be facilitated at refurbished dormitory and training facilities at the Hounslow research and demon-stration centre.
The project covers the develop-ment of efficient marketing and processing systems for meat and by-products; upgrading of existing abattoirs - one in St Elizabeth, Jamaica, and the other in Longdenville, Trinidad; infra-structure repairs and storage, fabrication and packaging equip-ment; and training in improved packaging, meat processing as well as refinement of by-products.
(US$=J$86)