ONLY /mo.
Caribbean L Q ife, Aug. 9-15, 2019 17
Barbados Minister of Agriculture, Indar Weir. Photo by George Alleyne
Bajan Blackbelly
sheep going regional
By George Alleyne
Shared land use for agriculture is
an area of CARICOM cooperation that
is an obvious no-brainer that causes
one to question why it is not happening,
but a Barbados-Guyana-Suriname
collaboration should soon see ventures
in this area.
Indications are that the Barbados
native Blackbelly may soon be grown
in the larger expanses of the two South
American CARICOM member countries.
Reports have emerged that
166-square-mile Barbados, which
developed this genetic strain of tropical
sheep, has responded to shrinking
agricultural space on an already miniature
land mass, by sending its farmers
to share the technology for rearing this
animal on plains of the 83,000-squaremile
Guyana and the 63,000 squaremile
Suriname.
With developers capitalising on loopholes
in Barbados laws and buying up
farmland for lucrative housing projects
on an island in high demand by wealthy
foreigners as a residence, authorities
have over the years been decrying the
reducing area for the Blackbelly stock,
that like all grazing animals, requires
extensive acreage.
Currently the Barbados Blackbelly
sheep population stands at an estimated
15,000, less than half the critical
mass needed for stock sustainability for
self-sufficiency in lamb and development
into an industry for sheep leather
by-products.
“We have to increase the number of
black belly sheep heads that we have
in Barbados, Minister of Agriculture,
Indar Weir said this week.
“If we are to get to be able to produce
the amount of lamb that we import
to produce it locally, we need approximately
35,000 heads, so it is a significant
jump,” he said, adding, “if we are
looking at the full value chain — the
skins to make leather craft and products
— then we need to get up to 600
000 to one million heads”.
Years of careful crossbreeding of
sheep brought from parts of sub-Saharan
Africa centuries ago and those
from more temperate zones resulted in
teh unique animal that is able to tolerate
heat and display more stamina than
most breeds of sheep.
They breed all year long, do not
require intensive management, and
produce lean and mild-flavoured meat.
Though many countries have
imported some of the animals for crossbreeding
with local stock, Barbados has
maintained the original genetic traits
through Greenland Livestock Research
Station, which the minister said would
control the genetic traits and ensure
interbreeding does not occur when the
animals are sent to the sister CARICOM
territories.
“Guyana and Suriname have offered
Barbadian farmers to go down and
use land to rear the sheep,” Weir said,
adding, “the farmers in this project
would be part of a traceability system
as well”.
“We are sending out a team now to
look at Suriname and then Guyana to
make sure we have a suitable arrangement
and type of land that we can raise
the black belly sheep.”
Goods manufactured and produced
otherwise within CARICOM enjoy a freetrade
arrangement that would allow
Barbadian farmers working alongside
counterparts in Guyana and Suriname
to export lamb and by-products to Barbados
without import levies.
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