Cabinet Notes:

The Cabinet welcomed five officials from the Ministry of Agriculture whose expertise on the production of poultry and poultry products is widely acknowledged. CLICK HERE TO JOIN WHATS APP GROUP

The officials confirmed that Antigua and Barbuda is efficient in producing eggs to meet domestic demand; however, the production of meat by way of broilers continues to lag.

One of the experts is a consultant out of London who has been in Antigua for 2 weeks; he made several proposals for increasing the production of meats.

The need for achieving food security requires Antigua and Barbuda to improve the production of poultry meat since the country currently imports $16 million dollars’ worth per year.

In order to achieve self-sufficiency, the producers would have to butcher 150 thousand chickens per month.

It was proposed to Cabinet that an abattoir capable of butchering a minimum of 14 thousand chickens daily could be installed in Antigua in 7 to 10 months.

The Government is committed to building a new abitur that will slaughter many more chickens and an adjacent slaughter house to replace the current building which sometimes floods and has to be inadequate.

Cabinet encourages small farmers to plan for expansion including the number of hatcheries that can be utilize the number of available chicks for the growers.