With uncertainty surrounding the future relationship between dairy farmers and the Pine Hill Dairy (PHD), Douglas Ward is doing everything possible to secure his investment.
The 49-year-old dairy farmer, who manages Calypso Farm in Eastbourne, St Philip, has already invested in a small pasteuriser so that he would be able to sell flavoured milk.
“I am bringing in a small pasteuriser which I bought for US$20 000. It only does 100 gallons at a time. It has a back mix on it for mixing flavoured milk. I?estimate that with the freight and VAT added I would spend close to $50 000 to get it here,” he told the SUNDAY?SUN.
Ward said he supplied the smallest quota of milk to PHD and was among ten farmers who had already reached their limit for the month. He said he would either have to dump milk, give it away or sell it at a ridiculously low price for the rest of the month.
“Yesterday [Friday] PHD called me and told me that there were ten farmers who were over their quota and eight who were under their quota, and that I?can go and lease quota from a farmer who was under. You mean to tell me you cut my quota by 25 per cent and I?am the smallest man out there and you are telling me to lease quota? That don’t make sense in my book,” he argued.
That is why he has decided to buy the pasteuriser to try to protect the farm in which he and his father Peter Ward have invested close to $200 000.
“I bought out two people and both together did not even have 100 000 kilogrammes. I only have 83 000 kilogrammes. So now it is reduced by 25 per cent with no excess and with further reductions expected next month, I?suppose that will be a total of 43 per cent with no excess so my back is against the wall,” he said.
Ward added he was currently milking 20 cows but was already in the process of building a freestyle barn for 50.
The farmer acknowledged that going out to buy his own pasteuriser had led to negative talk by some dairy farmers with some accusing him of being selfish.
“The other farmers are against what I am doing. Some are saying that I am only for myself and thinking for me solely instead of thinking as a group, but all I?hear is talk only but no action. I go to all these meetings and all I?hear is a lot of talk. I?do not hear anything about cost or how we will get it set up and I just can’t afford to fold up. It is a big investment to lose so I have to fight the battle on even if it is by myself.”
Recalling how he got into farming, Ward said his grandfather and father were always involved in the industry.
“My grandfather started out with Jersey cows and when my father came back from dental school in the early 1960s, he got involved with Jersey cows too. I remember when I was a boy I always had a passion for cows and horses and livestock.”
He lived in the United States for a number of years where he studied ranch management at college and dairy herd management at Utah State University.
“I worked for big dairies in Utah before the dairy boom in 1990 where all 63 of us in one county went out of business.”
Ward returned to Barbados and worked at Roberts Manufacturing for ten years before joining his father on the farm in 2008.
Asked how his 79-year-old father felt about the present situation affecting the industry, he said the elder Ward simply did not want to give up.
“He is not turning back; he is going forward with the Pine Hill Dairy or without the Pine Hill Dairy. His scenario is that we are going to do our own thing – market our own milk and see if we can make a go at it. He is not willing to put his money with all the other farmers because they are just talking, talking, talking, but no action.”
The outspoken Ward is of the opinion that the quota system as it operates in Barbados is all wrong.
“I know of quota systems in Canada and Ireland and they have never been run like this. As far as I am concerned this has been set up wrong. It was never set up with a board to regulate it and the farmers did what they liked, how they liked and that is the biggest problem with it.”
He said there should be a dairy board to regulate the quota system since the purpose of the system was to keep production and demand as close together as possible.
“We don’t have that, we have people with a huge amount of quota. They ship 30 per cent of it at one time and they have 70 per cent and say they are not leasing it; they are not selling it; or they got a favourite buddy and they will only lease it to that person . . . . That is the problem.”
And with the crisis facing the industry projected to worsen, Ward is wondering what Government will do about the situation.
“Mr [David] Estwick (Minister of Agriculture) told me over a year ago that he will come and visit me and every time he see me in Six Roads he can tell me he ain’t forget me, that he hear about my place up there.
“Hearing and coming to see what you trying to do and what you trying to achieve is two different things. I understand he got a busy schedule, but all of us do. If you’re the Minister of Agriculture and there is a crisis in the dairy industry, you mean to tell me it gwine take months and years to get a meeting with these people?”
Already Ward has had to put one of his workers on weekends only but he believes that the industry can be saved with strong marketing, lowering the retail price of milk and getting Barbadians to drink more of it.
“We need to keep advertising – get milk in the schools and the hospitals at a reasonable cost and get the consumption of milk up per consumer because Barbados has one of the lowest milk per capita wages.
“Cost is a big factor. You cannot expect a person to go to a supermarket and buy a gallon of milk at 30-something dollars a gallon and have two or three children to feed.
“I understand we have one of the highest feed costs and all our concentrate has to come from the US. Our inputs are very high but I still think there is room that the milk can come down below the $30 level for everyone, from producer to processor.”
