Anger over plans to slaughter breeding stock

On January 23, 146 head of selected stock, including Katahdin and Dorper sheep and Anglo-Nubians, Alpine and Saanan goat breeds, arrived at Piarco International Airport from North America. The stock was valued at over US$188,000.

Khan said it was disappointing and hurtful to the farmers that these new breeds were going to be destroyed. He said according to information he received, 16 to 20 of the stock were slaughtered yesterday.

He said they have sought to get answers from Food Production Minister, Devant Maharaj, and the ministry, but have gotten nothing. He said so much money was spent on this livestock and he was concerned that the slaughtering was being kept quiet by ministry officials.

“We want to know if these animals have contracted a serious disease, because if they have, the public should know about it. We also want to know if they are being slaughtered, what is going to happen to the meat, is it going to be incinerated or buried, what is going to happen,” he asked.

Maharaj when contacted said there was nothing like that going on, and Khan should stop making “wild statements”

The breeds were selected based on, in part, adaptability, weight gain, meat to bone ratio, milk yield. It was expected through the project for farmers to benefit from improvement in farm income, from increased availability of quality breeding stock; improved technical capability and practices of small ruminants’ producers through training; improved quality of output from the farm level (marketing of higher quality small ruminant meats) and stronger farmer groups linked to processors, marketers and consumers.