Milk mandate pitched as market driver for dairy

After languishing for decades, another effort is being made to bring back the dairy sector to its former glory, when Jamaica produced three times more milk.

Industry players cite climate change and the need to import better breeds of dairy cattle as matters to be addressed, amid a suggestion of a mandate by one of the largest dairy operators in Jamaica that milk consumption become the subject of government policy.

Jamaica’s dairy cows produce, on average, seven or eight litres of milk per day, which pales in comparison to the top milk-producing countries in the world.

Israel tops the world milk production chart, with its animals producing a whopping 43 litres of milk per day, according to Dr Derrick Deslandes, chairman of the Jamaica Dairy Development Board.

Other leading producers include parts of the United States with 38 litres per day, Ireland in the low 30s, and Canada at about 29.

In the Caribbean and Latin American region, Costa Rica has made great strides in recent years, with its cows giving 12 to 20 litres of milk per day, according to recent reports.

Richard Pandohie, CEO of Seprod Group, cautioned against looking at yield statistics without considering the factors which go into the animals producing milk. Seprod operates one of the largest dairy farms in Jamaica, called Serge Island.

“Our yields in Jamaica cannot be compared to that of Ireland, for example. Ireland just happens to have the best grass in the world and a perfect temperature, et cetera,” said Pandohie. Meanwhile: “Prior to this, 2022 and 2023 were massive droughts in Jamaica. That literally impacted the milk production in all of Latin America, actually, and Jamaica suffered like everybody else,” he said.

Pandohie says improved breeds and proper feeding or animal nutrition needed to be backed by government policy regarding the inclusion of milk in the diet of the people. He cited the case of the Dominican Republic, as example, saying years ago that country instituted policy requiring milk and other local produce to be part of the school feeding programme.

“That programme automatically created volume demand, so the farmers could then seek funding for investment in their plant. Therefore, you get the economy of scale necessary to make the investment,” he said.

“We live in a country where many of our children are malnourished or nutrient-deficient. So we need to create scale as best as possible by doing import substitution in our domestic space,” Pandohie added.

Deslandes, who is also president of the College of Agriculture, Science and Education, said Jamaica has not done enough to improve its dairy breeds, which contributes to the low levels of output.

“I think we have kind of lost the plot a little bit in terms of the genetics of our animals over the years. We didn’t need enough work from the days of T.P. Lecky until now, so we are at a point where the genetic quality of the animals needs to be improved. There’s been a fair amount of work on the beef side (beef cattle), where we have decent animals,” he added.

He was referring to the work of pioneer scientist Dr Thomas Phillip ‘TP’ Lecky, who developed four indigenous breeds of cattle for Jamaica’s tropical climate in the 1950s.

With the aim of improving the local stock of dairy breeds, the Jamaica government recently invited bids for the procurement of 250 heifers of the Brown Swiss, Holstein and Jersey breeds.

“In the short term, we are going to get a boost from the imported animals, once you put them in a condition to produce effectively. But the long-term plan is to infuse those animals into the current herds to get the yield of the entire industry up to 15 litres per day on average,” Deslandes said.

Pandohie noted that yields were also affected by the cost of feed, which soared alongside world grain prices during the COVID pandemic, and have not come down significantly since.

“You find that farmers, in an effort to create a model that allows them some level of sustainability, are cutting back on inputs, which then cuts back on yield and cuts back on production. So everything is interconnected,” he said.

Notwithstanding the issues facing dairy operators, Deslandes was upbeat about the sector’s prospects under the current efforts to improve it.

The main parishes for dairy production are St Thomas, St Catherine, Clarendon and St Elizabeth, but there are efforts to develop clusters in St Ann and other parts of Jamaica.

“I think it’s important to look at this as a test of Jamaica’s ability to address issues in the agriculture sector. It’s a specific sub-sector with tremendous potential that can be used as a test case in terms of how we work together to resolve the issues in agriculture,” he said.

luke.douglas@gleanerjm.com