Ministry of Agriculture & Land

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Trelawny Parish Manager for the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), Donald Robinson, is appealing to farmers in the parish to participate in the Goat Expansion and Revolving Project, which is designed to increase animal production to satisfy local demand for goat meat.

He told JIS News that "Jamaica consumes between 6.7 million to 7 million kilograms of goat meat annually, which costs the country some $700 to 800 million annually for importation as farmers are producing only about 16 per cent of the amount of goat meat that is being consumed".

"We think that with an innovative project, we can produce up to even 50 per cent of the meat that is required locally," he stated.

Mr. Robinson informed that 30 does and two bucks acquired from the Bodles Research Centre were distributed to 17 farmers at the start of the project, and Harmonization Limited has donated an addition two bucks.

"The revolving section of the project has already started and to date, five does have been collected from the first set of beneficiaries and these have been redistributed," he informed, adding that so far, a total of 18 animals have been born from the project.

The farmers, he said, are very grateful for the project and are benefiting from training in areas such as animal husbandry, housing, breeding and proper selection of breeding stock, slaughtering, marketing and preparation of carcasses for the market place.

"We are appealing to young men and women to get involved in the project because the returns from it can be very handsome," Mr. Robinson said, while encouraging the farmers, who were already involved in the programme to take care of the animals and do their best to keep the project alive.

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