The Belize Poultry Association today held its annual general meeting. It's a meeting of an important industry if we are to consider that its value is placed somewhere in the region of $60 million and provides the country with the most affordable source of animal protein. But this industry is at a cross roads where rising prices for supplies is making it that much more difficult to keep chicken cheap. Early this month the Poultry Association announced a sharp price increase today that was a main topic of discussion at the AGM. We were there.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
At the Belize Poultry Association annual general meeting those who are literally feeding the country met to discuss the year past and the one coming. Minister of Agriculture, Vildo Marin made it clear that this sector is extremely important.
Hon. Vildo Marin,
"The poultry industry of Belize contributes significantly to food security. It provides a significant amount employment not only to you the owners but to many Belizean workers. It contributes also to poverty alleviation through rural development. It contributes to foreign exchange savings and certainly contributes to the gross domestic product of the country."
So important that when the association announced a 22% per pound increase in the price of poultry on the second of February, it sent shockwaves across the community. Bernard Bergen is the Chairman of the Association and he says the increase was beyond their control.
Bernard Bergen,
"The main increase as we said before is the increase in corn prices which is a main source for the feed but also different sectors like the soybean meal and all that has come to a position, had a big increase that we had to increase our chicken prices also."
Orlando Habet,
"It has been some two or three years that the producers have actually been clamoring for an increase in price because at the producers level, the producers weren't making much money or barely anything at all. So we know that the producers were producing at a very limited profit if any at all. The poultry industry has been such that the chicken meat has been sold in Belize cheaper during the last year or two than it was ten years ago. That happened because the producers became more efficient so that they could have produced the product at a cheaper rate because of efficiency maybe because of management, in everything else that they do. But it came a time now that most of the inputs have risen in prices, maybe not to say it is because of prices that we really position ourselves in locally but because we input a lot of the inputs. But because of the inclement weather, the production of corn went down, went down to 23 million pounds last year. So that put us at a deficit of about one third of the available corn for the poultry producers to use as feed for the industry. So they had to import corn from Mexico and also some corn from the U.S. but of course at much higher prices than we were used to."
Bernard Bergen,
"The prices for international corn also has gone up and that is actually why our prices go up and down so we cannot control the international markets."
Still, manager of the Poultry Association Orlando Habet says that the way the industry is coping is by importing corn, genetically modified corn which has raised quite a stir. Habet says that there is no real basis in fact for the scare.
Orlando Habet,
"There is a concern from the food safety side for GMO products because there is a fear that it could have some effects on the persons or the animals that consume it. However there is no scientific of any problems that have arisen from the consumption of GMO corn. That corn is sold in the entire Caribbean, the U.S., Canada, Central America - that is all they use so…except Belize it hadn't been sold. However we can't say for sure if we are not consuming any type of GMO type products. We import other products that might, I am not saying they are, they might be from GMO origin, for example corn flakes, we don't know where the corn comes from - is it GMO or is it not GMO corn. If we really do the research and the investigation - there is a possibility that we have been importing GMO products for some time and we don't know."
And while that is not known what they also don't know is if and when the price of chicken will go down.
Bernard Bergen,
"In the international market the prices are all high and it is all international so I cannot say at this point if we can go down or at what point we can go down. I don't know if it is going back to where it was but yes, if the corn price will go down, I would sure expect that the price of chicken could go down."
Orlando Habet,
"The industry has taken the brunt of some of the increases and they will be able to hold on to that price for some time unless there is some thing realty dramatic that really skyrockets the price of not only corn but the other products and the other inputs that go in."
Also discussed at today's AGM is the avian influenza issue where the Poultry Association needs to make preparations if Ever the disease is to affect the poultry stocks.
