Agriculture minister reports near completion of works on national abattoir

The much-talked-about national abattoir is 98 percent complete.

Minister for Agriculture Roland Royer made the disclosure during Parliament recently.

“We are 98 percent complete in terms of construction of a new abattoir [and] will commisson by the end of March early April God’s willing,” he said.

He continued, “We have installed all the processing lines, we have tested and we will do a final testing in the next few weeks, so that we can receive birds from our farmers with a capacity to do 5000 birds per day and 50 pigs per day at the National Abattoir.”

Royer stated that individuals from the private sector are invited to partner with the government to operate and manage the facility.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Blue and Green Economy signed a contract with local firm, Regional Contractors Inc., in April 2024 for the reconstruction of the National Abattoir.

The contract, valued at over 6 million-dollars, underscores the government’s commitment to expanding the agri-food system through investments in key agricultural infrastructure, aimed at improving food safety standards and increasing production.

The facility, which is located in Layou, was severely damaged by Hurricane Maria in September 2017.

During the signing ceremony of the new Abattoir in January 2025, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Blue and Green Economy, Ryan Anselm, said the facility has the capacity for 1000 birds an hour.

“We are calling people to invest in broilers,” Anselm stated. “So, we are talking about 1000 birds in one hour, so the capacity of the abattoir is tremendous.”

This, he added, means that production output for any one farm ought to be 5000 birds.

“So our strategy at the ministry is that we want to work with 20 commercial farmers, so each of those commercial farmers has to be producing 5000 birds minimum.”

Anselm further stated that this is part of a wider strategy to reduce the importation of pork and poultry.

“We are not just building an abattoir for building an abattoir’s sake, it is part of a wider strategy to reduce the import bill,” he explained. “Our import bill for poultry is past 20 million [dollars] annually, and if our farmers can get some of that money, it’s critical.”

Anselm revealed that works have been completed on the pig abattoir and on the chicken abattoir – 13 percent.