Hefty bill for pork imports

A Government official is gravely concerned with the fact that millions of dollars are being spent on importing pork into Barbados.

Minister of Small Business, Entrepreneurship and Commerce, Dwight Sutherland, stated this during an interview with media yesterday morning.

He revealed that so far for the year, Barbados has imported 1.9 million kilograms of pork into the country, which meant that around Bds$6.3 million was spent, and since the bills needed to be paid with foreign exchange that meant that US$3.3 million was exiting the country.

The Minister stated that Barbados had the capacity, in his view, to be self-sufficient in pork production.

“But having said that we are signatory to the WTO regulations and indeed the technical powers to trade require that we have imports, but we need to create the policy space, through the WTO, what we call trade law mechanism, whereby we indeed can build out the industries, not just the pork industry but the poultry industry and the manufacturing industry,” he said.

“Some manufacturers import certain parts of the pigs and indeed we can’t stop that, but what we can do is discuss with the WTO trade law mechanism, that we create that policy space that we become self-sufficient in pork production.

“We need that space, and of course I am one that would advocate for that space. So we need to sit with the Ministry of Foreign Trade, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security as well as the Ministry of Commerce, we have to sit down as a team and see how best we can create that policy space that we can ensure that those local pig producers can get those products to market.”

Minister Sutherland believed that 1.1 million kg of pork imported thus far for the year was entirely too much.

He revealed that in 2018, the amount of pork produced by local farmers was 2.8 million kg; and 2.5 million kg and 2.6 million kg of pork were produced by local farmers in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

It was against this backdrop that the Minister was positive that there was a space to empower small pork producers and local small businesses in Barbados. (CLF)