Chicken supplies should return to normalcy within a matter of weeks, President of the Guyana Poultry Producers Association (GPPA) Peter de Groot has said.
The country has been experiencing a shortage of chicken meat since late July and de Groot told Stabroek News yesterday that the GPPA is predicting that by early October, the situation should return to normal. He cited the celebration of Navaratri by the Hindu community. He explained that during this nine-day period, Hindus would refrain from consuming meat which would give farmers the opportunity to have adequate amounts of chicken on the market. Navaratri will be observed from September 29th to October 8th.
Bounty Farms, de Groot said, has been able to restock and during the fasting period, farmers who are behind on production will be able to meet the demand.
The GPPA had previously said that the chicken shortage would be rectified by mid-August as local farmers had placed adequate supplies of chicken on their farms that will reach production age by that time. However, the shortage persisted.
The Guyana Livestock Development Authority in July confirmed that there was a shortage of chicken meat for consumption on the local market. It attributed the shortage to the reduction of hatching eggs imported as of June this year.
The GPPA, however, said that the genesis of the shortage of chicken lay in the fact that chicken was being smuggled on a large scale from Suriname. This resulted in a glut in the market and local farmers were left with overgrown chicken on their farms. Subsequently, Suriname raised the duty on imported chicken from five per cent to forty per cent while local authorities clamped down on chicken smuggling.
Consequently, there was a reduction of chicken being brought into the country illegally and as farmers were delayed in starting a new crop of chicks as the previous crop had to be sold off first, this resulted in the shortage of chicken on the market.
