The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

FARMERS across the country were said to be at breaking point as they battle livestock challenges, including deaths of pigs, allegedly due to contaminated and poor quality feed from the Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation’s Gladstone Road Feed Mill.

While farmers claim that gross mismanagement at Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC) is responsible for hundreds of livestock deaths since Hurricane Matthew last October, one insider has confirmed that 40 adult hogs and scores of suckling pigs at the Gladstone Road Agricultural Centre (GRAC) piggery have died within the past two months.

The BAIC Feed Mill has been shut down for nearly three weeks, intensifying the economic hardship experienced by farmers last year as they have to purchase feed at retail prices from local distributors, essentially paying double the cost for half the amount.

It has also highlighted systemic failures at the BAIC Feed Mill, which does not have a feed analyst or nutritionist on site.

“They ordered some corn from the US,” the insider claimed. “Due to the system in terms of payment protocol, the corn was sitting up on the dock for a period of time which caused it to turn rancid - improper storage.

“When corn turns rancid you get toxins, alpha toxins which lead to inferior food quality, poor palatability, and it will interact with other nutrients of ration or feed formulation. Essentially you’ll have a primary problem but also secondary problems.”

The insider continued: “When animals consume it, (how well they fare) it depends on their immune system. In sows, female pigs, on their gestation period, they’ll be pregnant but the piglets will die inside her and she will get sepsis, it will infect the mother and then she will die. So you’ll lose the piglets but you will also lose the mother.”

Unlike American feed, product supplied by the government is not insured and there is no accountability for errors that can have potentially far-reaching impacts on the country, The Tribune was told.

The insider further alleged that officials knew that the feed was compromised but decided to “take a gamble” due to the heavily politicised nature of the sector, which saw more than half of the staff at the corporation replaced by non-technical political placements.

“You have over 22 persons there who are mostly hired through political favours, so they just there for a job. But when you’re dealing with meat for human consumption, you should take this seriously,” the insider added. “It’s an applied science and it’s so important for a country.”

Stakeholders interviewed by The Tribune have indicated that the problem faced by workers in the agricultural sector stems from a complete lack of industry expertise at the executive level, and a total neglect of the sector by the government.

Devastating

While most of the farmers interviewed by The Tribune spoke on the condition of anonymity, 53-year-old Dennis Cates yesterday railed against the gross mismanagement of the feed mill and the failure of successive governments to effectively consult with farmers for the advancement of the industry.

“It’s been a devastating impact on the farmers,” Mr Cates said. “The powers that be think we’re incompetent, that we’re illiterate. I don’t know why they think it is that farmers are so uneducated and incompetent that we can’t run a farm or know what’s good for our animals. They don’t even have an analyst at the feed mill. No feed mill should be run without someone to analyse the product.

“After the hurricane, we purchased a lot of feed from them and it killed our animals. They were supposed to close it down then, but they continued. Now its killed 40 adult hogs and 40 pig sucklings, GRAC at the piggery - this is since January. So the feed had to have been given to them right before that.”

Mr Cates added: “It doesn’t happen in one day; pigs are the hardest thing to kill. Pigs can eat rat poison and live. It has to be something given to them over a long period of time. Just about all the farmers with livestock have experienced it to some degree.

“I’ve watched this industry evolve and watch it dissolve, and the issue is simple things. If they would just consult the farmers and work with the farmers ... there is no assistance. All that rhetoric about feeding the nation and food security, it’s the greatest bunch of malarkey,” Mr Cates said.

“I watch these people bamboozle us, every government, like we little children. That ain’t fair and that ain’t right. Our society is suffering and if the ports close we in trouble.”

According to Levarity Deveaux, president of the Bahamas Livestock and Agricultural Farmers Association (BLAFA), farmers in the country appealed to Prime Minister Perry Christie three years ago. As a result, a comprehensive overhaul was ordered with BAIC to become the chief means of delivery for the Abattoir, the Fish and Farm Store, and the Feed Mill.

While the intent was to make the delivery of goods and services more efficient, Mr Deveaux wrote to The Tribune in December, instead it became worse.

“The Abattoir is frequently down and the response is just as slow to make repairs,” Mr Deveaux said. “The inventory at the Fish and Farm Store is in short supply. The Feed Mill is failing so badly that BAMSI does not use its feed. When it has feed, the quality is bad and cannot be verified. This affects our production of food.

“When we compare what we are paid for our products with what consumers pay or with what imported products sell for, we feel abandoned and betrayed by successive government policies,” he added.