Chicken producers call on PM for ‘breathing space’

THE Poultry Association of Trinidad and Tobago (PATT) has written Prime Minister Patrick Manning requesting “some breathing space to achieve international competitiveness,” in response to the recent announcement of the reduction in import surcharge on chicken parts. The reduction will take place from November 1. Additionally, the association is asking Government to consider excluding leg quarters from the list of poultry parts at the new reduced surcharge, or alternatively, to calculate duty and surcharge on production cost rather than cut-rate prices. Dated October 12 and signed by PATT’s Robin Phillips, the letter is copied to the Ministers of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs. It explained that leg quarters, essentially a by-product of the American poultry industry, is sold at “salvage prices.”

Quoting from the Georgia (USA) Department of Agriculture, the letter said the price of whole fryers was US$0.77 a pound, while leg quarters was US$0.31 a pound. The association said the US poultry industry was so structured that its profitability was based solely on the sale of chicken breast and wings, which are marketed as “white meat and positioned as a healthier choice.” It said leg quarters, the residual dark meat, accounted for less than ten percent of US domestic sales, and is unfairly dumped on developing countries like ours, at less than 40 percent of its production cost. PATT argues that the practice has caused serious economic injury to several poultry industries worldwide, including Jamaica and Russia, and if the rules of global trade and the principles of fair trade were strictly observed, the “dutiable price of leg quarters would be based on production cost.”