FDA study opens window for Jamaican livestock farmers

JAMAICA - Local livestock farmers say they are not yet in a position to meet 100 per cent of the local demand for beef, given the battering the industry has taken over the years. However, with the right incentives, such as lower interest rates and government support programmes, they believe that in another few years Jamaica could become less dependent on places like the United States for its meat.
calendar icon 8 January 2007
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Figures from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (Statin) showed that local importers brought in more than $80 million worth of beef from the US alone between January and June 2003. In 2002, more than $1 billion worth of the prime cuts was imported

But this was not always so. Local farmers produced well over 80 per cent of the island's consumption through the 1980s to 1996.

President of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) Senator Norman Grant said Jamaica's meat industry should now capitalise on meeting the local demand if the United States goes through with its intention to provide cloned animals as food.

"Out of the resistance of the US to agree to label cloned meat, I think the meat producers in Jamaica can convert this into a tremendous opportunity and that is where the focus will be on," Grant told the Sunday Observer, adding that the JAS will be intensifying its campaign for Jamaicans to eat local foods."

On December 28, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded that there is no difference between cloned and conventionally produced food and as such does not require special labelling.

Source: The Jamaica Observer
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