The Guyana Poultry Producers Association (GPPA) yesterday called on government to urgently address the smuggling of chicken over the country’s eastern and southern borders and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) said it was aware of the problem and is addressing it.
Their call comes even as local producers bemoan the current cost of feed here, while some producers in Region Nine lament that production against competition from Brazil was not sustainable.
“Poultry Producers are alarmed at the increased visibility of smuggled chicken on the local market. These mainly arrive via our eastern and southern borders,” the GPPA yesterday said in a statement.
“…Poultry producers are concerned about increased smuggling activities. It is affecting investments in the local industry as planning and forecasting becomes very difficult, even the importation of hatching eggs becomes hard to plan leading to shortages and decline in local production. In consequence, smuggling activities is disruptive to our national and regional goals of achieving food security,” the body added.
The group charged that checks with retailers revealed that the smuggling is done by city based-persons well known for this kind of activity. Sources say that surveillance and enforcement are being frustrated by the smugglers’ connections to persons in authority.
The GRA Commissioner General, Godfrey Statia, told Stabroek News yesterday that the agency is aware of complaints of smuggling and is investigating. However, sources told this newspaper that while the GRA is actively investigating, it could not divulge details of that operation.
It was explained by a source that to offset high chicken demand during the Christmas holiday season, importation licences were issued to some business persons who would have still had to pay the requisite duty. Those licences covered a certain quota and were only valid for a specified period.
Leading up to the Christmas holidays, Chicken prices averaged around $500 per pound, but following the licence issuances, prices remained stable at around $400 and there were no shortages.
And while the rest of the world grappled with the high cost of eggs, that commodity was in ample supply here and averaged around $1,300 per 30-egg tray.
In the face of concerns raised by some local farmers about the rising mortality rates among chickens, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, and major producer, Bounty Farms Limited, at that time had assured that there would be no shortage of poultry for the holiday season.
Managing Director of Bounty Farms Limited, David Fernandes, had explained that measures have been implemented to have an adequate supply of the most consumed meat in Guyana and informed that licences were issued to some persons.
Sources complained that as late as mid-February, chicken was still being brought from Brazil, but when asked for evidence, they said that they had none.
The GPPA noted that smuggling has throughout the ages, posed a challenge to enforcement by GRA officers and has robbed this country’s economy of “substantial revenue principally because of poor punitive measures under the law.”
While not naming anyone, the association claimed that “well-known individuals and families have repeatedly been found in anti-smuggling operations by the GRA with minimal consequences under the law.”
Default
Last year September, the GRA won its case against Richie Shaw, of Padrak Poultry Depot, who was fined $4.9 million or in default would have to serve one year in prison for smuggling chicken into the country.
The next month, an ambulance was busted with hundreds of pounds of chicken smuggled from Suriname. It is unclear what happened to that case.
Sources said that the GRA has had many successes in its fight against food and other smuggling “but you don’t hear GRA trumpeting their strides.”
Yesterday, Stabroek News reached out to some well-known small- and medium-scale chicken producers on the issue of smuggled chicken and how it was affecting them.
Only Shaz Ally spoke on record and he said that he was not aware of abnormal smuggling or that there was a glut of foreign chicken or a shortage of local chicken. Ally said that his business was operating as per “normal.”
Contacted for comment, a female Soesdyke chicken farmer explained that she was not aware of a high volume of smuggling. She said that both the baby chicks and feed are supplied to her by Bounty Farm, adding, “Well we are just paid for that. So anybody to complain about effects would be Bounty, not us. But wuh a can tell you is that they have not shortened feed or chick[s].”
A Lethem businessman remarked that while he could “not speak for all of Region Nine,” there was no way that producers there could compete with chicken being produced in Brazil. “We tried with the producing here but to get feed meant it coming from the very Brazil because it is not sustainable to bring feed all the way from Georgetown. And even then, you cannot compete. If persons take a walk over and bring back their chicken [from Brazil], what you really wasting your time doing saying you minding? Some people still trying but it makes no sense. None!”
Another medium-scale producer said that he had been offered 6,000lbs of chicken from Brazil at $280 per pound but declined because he suspected that it was being smuggled. “I would be undermining my own business,” he said.
The poultry producer explained that he paid $4,900 per bag of chicken feed one year ago and today it is $6,590 per bag. Currently, he said that he knows of other producers who are forced to sell out their stock without making a profit because of the chicken glut on the market, as it was not profitable to continue to rear the birds.
Brazil is one of the largest producers of corn and soybean, the main ingredients in chicken feed. That country also has three of the world’s top five chicken-producing companies.
“We can’t compete with Brazil. The sheer volume of production of both chicken and feed sets us back. We don’t even have our own research institute. So there is no competition. Brazil will always lead. Chicken from Suriname isn’t in the same volume as Brazil,” a producer contended.
“The key is finding that balance…,” he added while explaining that large-scale producers and stock feed suppliers have also taken advantage of consumers during COVID and high demand periods.
“But the big players never get hurt. The small and medium-scale producers are who always suffer. It is the man that is minding 200 or 1,000 birds that will face the consequences of smuggling and not those that fix demand or feed prices,” he added.
