Agriculture

Trial phase underway for big poultry feed project: Upbeat about being part of a project to produce corn and soya bean locally for livestock feed, Chief Executive Officer and owner of Guyana Stockfeeds Inc, Robert Badal says the initiative will significantly decrease reliance on imports and ensure prices, especially for poultry, remain constant. And as some 250 acres are being prepared in Tacama, Region 10, for a trial crop scheduled for planting next month and reaping in September, it is Badal’s hope that the project grows significantly to the point where other local investors will come on board so as to get this country to the stage where it becomes the Caribbean’s premier supplier of poultry feed. “It is a public-private partnership and our mission now is to arrive at the best variety and yield to ensure it makes economic sense, which I am very optimistic that it would,” Badal told the Stabroek News in an interview. “We import probably about 100 thousand tonnes of grains per annum of corn and soya. These would normally be sourced from the US. Our conditions here in the Inter-mediate Savannahs present a significant opportunity for the local production of corn and soya in the sense that we have extensive acreage for large scale production. Growing our grains will enhance the competitiveness of our poultry production; presenting us with the opportunity to export processed chicken feed throughout the Caribbean,” he added.