Discovery Bay Poultry Farmers Receive Hurricane Melissa Recovery Support

A group of 40 poultry farmers in Discovery Bay, St. Ann, is receiving support to return to production after Hurricane Melissa hit last October and wiped out birds and other farm assets.

The assistance came through a training session held on June 30 at the Port Rhoades Club under the Jamaica Bauxite Institute's (JBI) Bauxite Community Development Programme (BCDP). The workshop is part of a poultry recovery effort that will provide each beneficiary with 50 broiler chicks, 10 bags of feed and continued technical support, with the goal of getting them back into commercial production within six weeks.

Senior Projects Officer at the JBI, Wesley Harley, told JIS News the intervention was put together to help poultry farmers who suffered heavy losses during the storm. "The project is aimed at assisting communities which are attached to the bauxite community councils to be restarted after the advent of Melissa. The folks around here tell us that they were devastated by Melissa, as the assets that they had, even the chickens that they had in production, they lost all of that," Mr. Harley said.

He said recovery has been slow for many of the affected farmers and the project is meant to give them a push to begin earning again. "So, in recovering, it’s been a very slow start. What this project aims to do is to give them a booster for them to get started again," he added.

Mr. Harley also said the initiative is meant to do more than replace what was lost in the short term. According to him, the wider goal is to keep the farmers active in poultry rearing over the long haul and move them steadily back to full output. "We hope, and we are very adamant about this, we want them to continue in poultry production from here on. The objective of the programme… is to get them restarted and on the way to production so that they totally recover from the damage that they suffered from Hurricane Melissa," he said.

He further noted that Nutramix has joined the effort and will continue guiding the farmers through visits to their operations and regular monitoring, so they can strengthen production and sell their birds successfully. Nutramix Veterinary Manager Dr. Gilbert Williams said the training centred on practical methods farmers can use to rebuild better-managed poultry businesses. "Post-Hurricane Melissa, a lot of birds would have died, and a lot of farmers are reconstructing. So, this presentation also serves as a model as to how to build a coop… the orientation of the coop is also very important and the location of the coop is important," Dr. Williams said.

Dr. Williams stressed that airflow and biosecurity must be treated as essential parts of poultry management. "We should always strive to have all mesh around the perimeter of the building, no solid sides because that will hamper the ventilation. Once the birds are not properly ventilated, they won’t eat as much feed… and biosecurity is very, very important," he emphasised.

Discovery Bay Community Council member and poultry farmer Sanyah Johnson said participants left with useful guidance they can apply on their farms. "There are things that we didn’t understand, so we got to learn about them today. We learned how to take care of the chickens before they are sold… the proper housing, lighting, watering and feeding as well. It was a good experience for us," Ms. Johnson said.

The poultry recovery project sits within the JBI's Bauxite Community Development Programme, which backs agriculture, education, infrastructure and other community initiatives in Jamaica's bauxite-producing areas through partnerships involving public- and private-sector organisations.