Several small farmers are struggling to maintain their operations due to low returns as a result of the compact they signed with Government earlier this year.However, President of the Barbados Egg and Poultry Producers Association (BEPPA) Stephen Layne has assured there will be adequate supplies of local poultry and poultry products to meet Christmas demands.He explained In an interview with Barbados TODAY that small farmers represented about 40 per cent of the sector and about ten per cent of them were not making any profit. As a result, he said, they were not buying hatching eggs as regularly as before and were producing fewer birds.Layne said this was impacting hatching egg businesses, but due to a reduction of imported chicken because of the outbreak of bird flu in some international markets, the local industry could not afford to falter.“Outside of the big conglomerates, they [small farmers] have about 40 per cent of the industry but some of them are still growing. The ones that stopped growing need to get back in because there is a lot of opportunity there because the bird flu in Britain is going to open up the market. We won’t be able to import poultry from those locations that have bird flu because it would damage our local poultry industry. So we will have to have all hands on deck,” he said.
