'Farmers selling off livestock since start of dry season'

Farmers have been forced to sell their animals since the start of this year’s extremely harsh dry season owing to a lack of water and, in some cases, grass.

President of the Trinidad Unified Farmers Association Shiraz Khan said this is the latest obstacle facing the farming community, which has also had to struggle with praedial larceny, a lack of compensation for flooded fields and a sudden increase in the price of livestock feed. Khan was commenting on the story of Penal farmer, Curtis Ramsawak, who is selling off his prized drove of pigs because of an inadequate water supply which has crippled his business.

Three of his eight pigs have already been sold.In a telephone interview yesterday, Khan said this has been taking place throughout the farming community since the start of the 2019 dry season. “We had people sell out their animals from Paramin in the dry season because it didn’t have water and grass, because they couldn’t get water up the hill, and because of the weather, the grass just wasn’t growing. “Now some people cannot get the quantity of water, because they (WASA) are scheduling water and animals need water 24/ 7, especially for something like pigs.

If you don’t have a water supply, what will happen, the place will start smelling, everybody going to call the different public health people for you, and you will lose production because you can’t give the animals the right amount of water so they can eat and be comfortable and gain weight.”

He said a farm is not like a store or a school where classes could be dismissed early or workers sent home because of a lack of water. “We can’t do that with animals. We can’t tell animals we can’t feed them or bathe them or give them water to drink. Animals are something totally different, and the farmers have to find a way to feed and give them water.”

He said global warming has the potential to destroy global food supplies and this would have a negative impact on import-dependent countries like TT. “When all the food supplies are destroyed and nothing can’t come into the country and we destroy ours here, what would you have? The few products that are produced locally will go sky-high and very few people would be able to afford that.”Khan said the agricultural sector will continue to be treated like a "bastard child" and nothing will change in the 2019/2020 budget.