Chick shortage hits poultry industry

After the COVID-19 fallout, which saw local chicken farmers suffering significant losses due to a lack of demand, the market has changed course.

There is now a high demand for home-grown chicken and some farmers are now having challenges to source chicks.

Vice-president at Hi-Pro, Jaimie Ogilvie, says the boost in the market is as a result of the ban placed on imported chicken parts, like the neck and back, by the Government.

"So there is a shortage of chicken neck and back, and people are still looking to buy chicken, so they are buying it from the small farmers," he told THE STAR.

The ban was placed on chicken imports in April after local poultry companies and farmers saw a surplus.

Less expensive

Ogilvie says persons are now gravitating towards the farmers' chickens, as they are less expensive than the imported.

"A small farmer will sell a pound of chicken for anywhere between $185 to $200. A pound of neck and back is normally about $150. Now persons can pay up to $200 a pound for imported neck and back," he said. "We now find that persons prefer to buy because it is cheaper and it is fresh, as opposed to imported neck and back which is not a premium product and persons can't guarantee how fresh it is."

Patricia Francis, chicken farmer in St Catherine, said she has managed to sell all chickens that she had, but she is now experiencing a challenge to get chicks.

"After the place start open back, everybody did want chicken, so if I sell off everything and if I had more than what I did, it would sell," she said. "When I went to buy chicken they (suppliers) said it was scarce. They take orders for persons up to a month at a time so it is hard, but I manage to get a few other day."

Ogilvie admitted that the demand for chicks is "unusually high, more like when we would be getting ready for Christmas".

"Just coming out of COVID in June, the market was a little below where we were last year. For July, we are doing the same number of baby chicks that we did last year. The difference is that small farmers were not able to produce and sell what they had in April and May when COVID caused lockdown and so on. They are just now getting back into business and making up for losses," he said.

There are more than 100,000 small chicken farmers in Jamaica.