(Trinidad Express) It might be just chicken feed, but it’s expensive.
Local poultry and livestock feed prices are expected to rise sharply as a North American drought has led to skyrocketing costs in corn and soybeans – the main ingredient in animal feed – which will be passed on to the consumer.
From next month, local feed producers, who have to import almost 100 per cent of raw materials, are expecting shipments 33 per cent higher than last.
The shipment before saw corn costs 20 per cent higher.
“The grain market over the last year has been very volatile, but not so drastic that we couldn’t manage costs. Now, the way these prices are going up, it will not be possible to sustain,” Geoffrey Rostant of Master Mix Trinidad told the Express yesterday via telephone.
He said this year despite record acreages in the US after a warm winter and predictions of falling prices by experts, the drought has reckoned the opposite.
“There is talk of rationing, so now there might not even be enough. Price will not be the issue, but supply. We are making arrangements to see if we can get supplies from South America but they are not our traditional source,” he said.
A spokesman at animal feed producer Nutrimix told the Express there is no real alternative for the imported products, so the international increase will have a “significant and direct” impact on producers, and farmers who raise poultry and livestock must expect rising animal feed costs.
“Each successive shipment that prices go up for, we will have to raise prices, and we do not know how long this will last,” he said.
President of the Sheep and Goat Farmers Association Shiraz Khan said in a telephone interview a new plan is needed to deal with a continuous situation like this, because there is no feed alternative for farmers.
Khan said with the closure of Caroni (1975) Ltd and the demise of the coconut industry farmers had no other source for by-products that could be used to make other forms of feed. The local rice industry, he added, was not large enough to sustain requirements.
“It’s a hell of a challenge… I’ve even talked to people who say they are thinking about leaving the business because they are losing money and cannot sustain themselves,” he said.
Khan, who farms meat and milk, said another issue farmers had to face was the fact that meat is not a staple food.
“If people see high meat prices they just won’t buy. We can hope that imported meat prices go up, then we could possibly raise ours as well (to remain competitive),” he said.
Khan said the government needed to do more for farmers to help them access affordable feed prices. He noted that a Feed Bank had been recently set up by the Ministry of Food Production, but that alone was not enough.
“We need the State to step in so we can find some viable alternative supply,” he added.
