Dairy and poultry farmers are among those suffering the ill effects of Hurricane Elsa since last Friday.
Chief executive officer of the Barbados Agricultural Society, James Paul, said no milk was collected by the Pine Hill Dairy (PHD) on Friday.
“We also have a situation where the lack of electricity could affect their capacity to store milk as it has to be stored before it is collected and at the right temperature,” he said over the weekend. “They also need power to operate the milk machines but, in most cases, they should have everything under control.”
One dairy farmer told the DAILY NATION: “[Friday] the milk truck didn’t come out so farmers that would have had milk from Thursday, unless they had an ice bank cooler that they could hold it for some time, that milk would have had to be tested.
“They (PHD) came [Saturday] morning and tested the milk in our cooler but the truck didn’t come and we didn’t hear back from them about the quality of the samples. In some cases, farmers couldn’t wait that long and they dumped the milk . . . .”
Paul said some small-scale poultry farmers were also impacted.
“Everybody doesn’t have the capacity to build shelters for all of the animals, especially in the poultry industry. Some of the roofs have been compromised. In one case, I know of a small farmer who lost about 200 chicks out of about 800,” he said. (SB)
