GPPA attributes chicken shortage to smuggling

Aug 01, 2019 News

There has been a shortage of chicken in Guyana and it has reached the point where one of the country’s largest fast food producers, KFC, had to issue an advisory to alert its customers that it was out of wings and stripped chicken.
The Guyana Poultry Producers Association (GPPA) has put out a statement saying that the current shortage of chicken in Guyana has its genesis in smuggling from the country’s neighbour Suriname.
Smuggling was done in extremely large quantities in 2018. This was because of the fact that the country at that time only imposed a five per cent duty on chicken entering its borders, the statement said.
Furthermore, this low duty percentage encouraged the large portions of Brazilian and American chicken to be legally imported into Suriname and then snuggled over to Guyana.
This, in turn, led to excess in the local market as the Guyanese producers couldn’t estimate the amount being smuggled in. The result is that they continued to rear and butcher the usual number.
This overload of chicken on the market lasted from the end of May 2018 to March 2019 and was the largest Guyana has ever seen, the statement added.
Suriname increased its duty on chicken from five per cent to 40% in June and the smuggling business took a hard blow.
In addition the Guyana Revenue Authority’s Enforcement Department stepped up its campaigns to eradicate the illegal chicken business and the efforts seem to be paying off.
Large quantities of chicken were being seized as they were brought over the border.
The poultry producers association said that farmers were found to have excess chickens in their rearing areas, some that were 12-15 weeks old, when the normal period for growth and sale is six weeks.
The delay in selling those off caused a delay in starting a new batch as this would require pens to be empty.
At present the importation of hatching eggs has increased and the local farmers now have a sufficient supply of chicken on their farms.
The association said that these will be of processing age within another week or two. This is expected to bring an end to the shortage of local chicken.
Since the smuggling has been disrupted it is unlikely that the country will see the same issue reoccurring.
The GPPA expressed its thanks to the Enforcement Department of the GRA for the excellent job that they have been doing to stop chicken smuggling in Guyana.
“The public is also guaranteed that the chicken supply will return to its normal state by the middle of August,” the association stated.

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