Subhas: Cut cost of chick feed

PRINCES Town MP Subhas Panday said the Government could have reduced the price of chicken by cutting the cost of the feed grown locally, instead of cutting the tariff on imported chicken parts. His criticism came on Friday in the House of Representatives in the debate on the Provisional Collection of Taxes Order 2004. “Why doesn’t the Government control the price of feed coming into Trinidad and Tobago?” He criticised Minister of Agriculture, Jarrette Narine, who earlier told the  House that there was nothing wrong with poor people eating chicken legs. 

Panday said chicken legs were imported very cheaply from the United States where they were not eaten but were considered unhygienic and classed as red meat. “The Government is giving poor people “garbage” to eat under the pretext of reducing the price,” he charged. Panday accused the Government of intentionally trying to kill the local chicken industry, noting that the poultry industry is the largest employer in the agriculture sector. He wondered whether the Government hated rural people. Remarking on the demise of sugar-cane, he added: “Is it a question of spite? The same areas where the sugar industry is in, you would find most chicken farms.”

Again hitting the Government for cutting the import-surcharge, he said: “They use nice words for agriculture, but look how they are trying to damage it.” He hit Narine who, he said, had failed to tell the House his plans to develop the local agriculture sector. Panday said Prime Minister Patrick Manning in his Budget address had in one breath vowed to save agriculture, but in the next breath hinted at destroying  it. While the Government was cutting the tariff on imported chicken parts from 86 percent to 40 percent, he said other countries kept their tariff to protect their own farmers including Bahamas where it was 120 percent, Barbados at 100 percent, Belize at 94 percent, and Guyana at 88 percent. “These charges are to protect farmers from external forces. Farmers do not ask for a subsidy but for a level playing field.” He said that the United States poultry industry had the unfair advantage of both economies of scale and governmental subsidies.