A collaborative effort between Newport Mills, Jireh Animal Health Centre, Fevrier Feed and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has created a workshop that will seek to sensitize local livestock farmers as to trends and standards in the industry with the view to upgrading the quality and volume of meat production in Dominica.
The workshop is being held today at the Public Service Union and features a number of regional livestock industry partners including representatives from Caribbean Broilers (CB) Ltd, as facilitators, relating topics that speak to the needs of a wide cross-section of the industry’s farmers; poultry, porcine or otherwise.
Chairman for the workshop, Dr. John Toussaint spoke to the objectives of the day’s activities.
“This workshop has specific objective, mainly the production of sanitary meat, meeting the European Union standards, so that we can market the meat. We want to be certified by the EU for two reasons. Firstly, once we are certified we can control the quality of meat that comes into this country and secondly, to be certified we have to start from the farm to the table, so the farms need to be certified,” Toussaint mentioned.
He continued, “While we are trying to set up the structures [to improve the meat quality], we must, simultaneously, look at how we will get rid of the meat we produce. It is important that we can do this. And one of the markets that we are trying to capture is our French neighbors, Martinique and Guadeloupe. For years now they have been interesting in buying meat from Dominica, but because we did not have an EU certified abattoir, they have not been able to do so.”
Rudaille Thomas, one of the farmers at the workshop, believes that a workshop of this kind is long overdue and a very good initiative.
The poultry farmer from Portsmouth said, “This has been very long overdue. Most people here who produce poultry do it on their own, no sense of direction, pretty much. If there is a movement to try and get everyone under one umbrella, it can only be for the best. Everyone is looking forward to hear what the facilitators have to present.”
Among the facilitators for today’s proceedings are Dr Keith Amiel of CB Ltd, Dr. Cedric Lazarus, FAO Livestock Development Officer and Dr. Desmond Ali of the Caribbean Poultry Association.
I have a note reminding me of a workshop on the sanitary production of meat in Dominica headed by Dr. Toussaint on 21 July 2011, urging all farmers to meet European Union standards and that he wants us to be certified by the E.U. Well, Dr. Toussaint, does your pig production meet European Union standards and are you E.U., certified after five years? I really wish you would sue so we can get clarity on all this. You work for the Ministry of agriculture, don’t you, after all!
who is in charge of the Dominica Poultry Association ?
The farmers are feeding these animals too much pellets. The pork tastes like chicken. Let us put some of the nice green grass that we are endowed with to good use farmers. I need to get that good pork flavour for the Christmas
so you mean to say EHO don’t have any say in the quality of meat that comes into my island.what a press!!the same EHOs quick to come a dump and confiscate the local meats and they know is grass den animals eating.