CTA
Small fontsize
Medium fontsize
Big fontsize
English |
Switch to English
Français
Switch to French
Filter by Agriculture topics
Commodities
Regions
Publication Type
Filter by date

Calls for stakeholder dialogue to revive Jamaican beef sector

01 October 2012

The Jamaican government is looking for a ‘tangible solution’ for the promotion of the local beef sector in the face of ‘continued importation of beef and beef products’. The Minister of Agriculture has called for a stakeholder dialogue to plot the way forward in a context where, since the 1990s, local beef production has fallen by two-thirds.

However, with drought in the US driving up feed prices, market conditions are less than propitious for the launch of initiatives aimed at expanding local beef production. But it should be borne in mind that, as the USDA has pointed out, current high feed prices will also trickle through into higher poultry, beef and pork prices.

Against this background, ‘pasture development’ is seen as a major challenge, since reducing feed import dependency is seen as critical for the development of Jamaican beef production.

Editorial comment

Developing reliable and stable feed supplies is likely to be a major challenge to any efforts to revive Jamaican beef production, within the national and regional policies that focus on enhancing food and nutrition security by encouraging citizens to ‘grow what they eat and eat what they grow’. Securing competitively priced feed supplies represents a long-standing challenge.

While research has shown that the Caribbean and Central American region is the centre of origin of many of the world's best known tropical forage legumes, these forage crops have played only a minor role in pasture production. This partly reflects the secondary nature of livestock production in the Caribbean, where priority has traditionally been given to crop production.

Any Jamaican efforts to improve the use of forage crops and pasture management are likely to be closely followed in the region, given the wider regional interest in expanding livestock production. Scope for regional cooperation potentially exists in this area. The current experience of cooperation in poultry feed supply chain development between Belize and Jamaica could offer some pertinent lessons.

In addition, on the production side, challenges related to the semi-commercial and subsistence basis of much of national livestock production in Jamaica will also need to be addressed.

For Jamaica, beyond just strengthening capacity to satisfy local demand, reviving local beef production is important for sustaining exports of the popular ‘beef patties’ to the rest of the Caribbean, the US, the UK and Canada. This industry component offers great potential for value addition and export development, potentially feeding back into further product innovation and efficiency gains. However, in the past, threats to regional exports have emerged over allegations that Jamaican ‘beef patties’ contained non-originating beef imported from Argentina or other extra-regional sources.

Comment

Terms and conditions