Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: And we're speaking to a gentleman. He's been with us before. He's representing the sales farmers group. Let's welcome back to our program. Bhindra Maharaj, good morning to you. And nice to have you with us here this morning, albeit a bit later than we were supposed to. When you're dealing with technology, you have these issues. Nice to have you with us here this morning.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Good morning. Good morning to you and all your listeners in Trinidad and Tobago and across the world.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Now, the sales farmers group, you all have been doing a lot of things. I know that we'll speak about your market and some of the advancements there as well. But there's a project that I think was undertaken yesterday.
It deals with dairy farmers and assisting them in reviving, I don't want to use the term revive, but probably enhance our dairy production. At this point in time. You'll tell us where it is, give us a bit of information on what took place.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Well, basically what we are doing is our members, our membership has grown significantly over the last couple of months. And what has happened is that we are now into a large group of animal husbandry farmers. And these are dairy, these are cattle, these are meat farmers. We're talking about goat, sheep, even poultry farmers, rabbit farmers. So what has happened is this, over the years, a lot of our dairy farms and meat producers, this stock, the stock in trade has dwindled significantly. All because it's not that the farmers don't want to do it, it is just that they don't have the necessary support from the ministries, the relevant authorities, to help bring the stock back into reality. And by that I mean, you know, new stocks, new stocks of animals suited to our climate, our, our environment.
So what was happening is that the wet area of the ministry is severely short staffed.
And what is happening now is that our farmers are now not able to get that process of artificial insemination.
Now, locally, we used to do this, you know, just the old fashioned way, but now what has happened, because there is a niche for that particular operation.
We now have partnered with a company called Inseminate.
It's a private project.
This has nothing to do with the ministry. There is no support at all for it. And we have decided to work with our members to help bring back proper and pure breeding stock of animals to Trinidad and Tobago. So that is where we were that we launched yesterday.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: How vibrant is the dairy industry, dairy production in this country at this point in time?
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Dairy, it could be. I want to use the words, you know, very carefully, dairy production can be very, very, very productive. Very.
It's a good incentive for farmers. I'll tell you why we still have milk production in this country.
But if you look at the cartoons that the milk producers use here, it's reconstituted milk.
So that does have a degree of powdered milk in it.
But because of the lack of support from the dairy farmers, because of the lack of new stock of dairy products, dairy producing milk, that is why we will have that.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Hello.
Okay, we seem to have a bit of a problem with the audio.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: If we produce the milk for the producers, for the milk producers, the market is there.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: But how much needs to be produced? And what's the disparity that exists at this point in time? Is it that they need, and I don't know, you can give me the figures, is that we need a certain amount to satisfy them here locally and we just can't make that. And what do we need to do to get up to that number?
[00:04:47] Speaker A: This is, that is the very most important question.
The quantities we can produce.
The dairy producers will take everything.
Right now we have a shortfall, a bad shortfall.
I would say the figures are seeing about 60% to 70% shortfall in locally produced milk from the dairy farmers.
Now, if we can bring it up, by bringing farmers, dairy farmers, with proper milk producing animals, we can start to bring that shortfall into a reasonable position.
And that is exactly what we are going to be doing.
Because what we have sourced via our partners is that we are now getting sperm from animals that are suited to our country and we are going to be bringing them into a pure bread situation. So you will have animals which will be producing milk and milk only, and then you can have animals producing meat and meat byproducts. So that is where we are.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: Yeah. It's always interesting when we have these discussions about agriculture, how decimated some of these industries seem to be and how, I don't want to use the term, poorly supported, but you can tell that much more needs to be done. I remember some time ago having the discussion about, about goat meat production in this country and back then, which was a couple years ago, the individual that we were speaking to said that we produce probably less than 5% of the goat meat that is consumed in this country. And that's ridiculous because goat meat is a staple. I mean, you get that all the time. It's all over the place and everything else. But to know that we produce such little of what we consume in such a large quantity suggests that, well, is there the market for this to bump up production so that we have more local as opposed to imported? But how realistic is something like that? Because when you look at the cost of production and how expensive local goat is as opposed to imported, you will always have that wrangling there where you can get a pong or goatee and grocery for $20, but that's $50 if you go to buy it local. So does it make sense? And when it comes to milk production, I'm assuming that the major players who purchase this milk, this raw material, need to find a supply that is, number one, cost effective to them, and number two, is reliable enough to ensure that their business survives. Because we consume milk, we do in a very large way. I showed as a multimillion dollar business in this country.
So taking it from where it is now and injecting, no pun intended, this new life into the industry and trying to get it back up to production where more can be produced and make a significant impact at home, what kind of time frame we're looking at for us to get anywhere close to seeing the results?
[00:08:16] Speaker A: Well, in the first instance, I want you to understand clearly farmers are not aware of their business aspect of farming.
That's one of the problems.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: And you must understand that milk production, meat production, whether it's beef or goat or sheep.
Yes, I agree. There is a niche. There is a serious shortfall in these areas. There is.
Now, when you look at buying local goat meat, people will pay a little extra premium for locally fresh produced goat. I mean, there have been rumors that some of the goat that we're getting from foreign is not really goat. I can't. I'm just saying rumors, allegations.
A lot of people don't like to buy the frozen meat stuff. They like the fresh stuff. They know, because when you go there, you actually see what you are getting.
And that, I'll be honest with you, because of the shortage of the meat animals, you will find that this price will have, of course, it will escalate a bit, but the imported material that is coming in has taken the price of fresh produce. Fresh produced meat. Dumb. It has, it has a telling effect. Now, the issue we have, yes, I am saying it is going to take some time, as a matter of fact, if we have to do dairy production and bring it back into full. But let's say a pure bred animal, it will take three generations of animals.
So it will take some time.
But you cannot take, like somebody made a comment yesterday, so why we can. Why we cannot take the animals that we have here and inseminate them with what you have. You see, Satish, you have to understand, the animals that we have locally might be small. And then if you bring a Holstein from outside and, you know, you get these eyes from outside, you may not be able to put an animal of a holstein in a brahma or another type of animal here that has a smaller passageway.
So you have to have the proper animal and the proper base for the animal to make sure that it's taken care of while it's pregnant and while it is on the way to be. To be delivered. So those are the issues that institutions that we have to deal with. So you have to be very careful.
The problem here is we have to do this project because of our membership solely on our own.
That is where we have the issue.
We have to do this. And while we are going outside and explaining to our farmers, like, we had about very close to 50 farmers yesterday at this meeting, and they all are interested in getting a purebred animal.
And we're talking about the milk industry, we're talking about the meat industry. But you know what was very prevalent yesterday?
The production of ghee, locally produced ghee. There were about six farmers who take all their product, all their milk and produce locally made ghee.
And that was very interesting, and I'll tell you why. They are saying it takes too much milk to produce one gallon of ghee.
So they are now looking, and which is what we have. We have an animal that we can bring via sperm to produce, but big, much more fat than milk.
So these are the. These are the areas that we are looking at, because the game industry is a very big, big industry in Trinidad.
It is now expanding to Tobago and to Guyana. And the reason why I'm saying that is because people use it a lot in prayers.
Very important.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it has become very expensive.
Yes, you have your cheaper versions and everything else, but there are people who believe in quality and brand and all these kinds of things, so they latch on to the one that they know for forever. And that has gotten very, very, very expensive. We need to take a quick break. But when we get back, I want to deal a bit with the sales farmers and the market that you have and what has been going on with that, because everybody looking for a bargain, everybody's looking to see where they can get things a bit cheaper, because the cost of living is going up, people's salary necessarily going up the way it should, and all that kind of thing. And that is going to be very, very interesting for our listeners when we get back. We are speaking, of course, this morning with Bindra Maharaj, representing the sales farmers group.
Welcome back. We continue our discussion. We have another interview scheduled for 830.
Speaking with this morning representing the sales farmers group. That's been Ramaharaj, your group. You've been running for quite some time.
The farmers market. I think there's a call. Let's see who this is.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: Hello.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Good morning.
[00:14:09] Speaker C: You know, there's no encouragement to go in farming, any type of farming in this country. No government, past or present, have encouraged or put any meaningful investment in the farming. Becoming a farmer for a new farmer is way too hard. And to access the funding for those, for those projects, it really discourages. So I don't, I don't see it happening. But there's a wide, there's a lot of space in this country to do all sorts of farming if the government can help subsidize it and make the funds more readily accessible for like any irrigation and all these types of things that farmers need. Thanks a lot.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Okay. Thank you so much for the call. We know that financing will always be a challenge when it comes to matters like these. Let's think we have another call.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: Hello.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Good morning.
[00:15:15] Speaker C: Morning. Satish. Satish. My take is, you know, mister Rowdy travel.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: All right, we're talking about something totally different. Here we go. Pick up Rowley and M again after the interview. We're dealing with the sales farmers group and what's going on. And before the break I said that, well, we have just a couple minutes again in the interview and I want to know more about what's been going on with the farmers market that's located right in Kareni there. Tell us a bit about it.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: Well, I'll be honest with you. We have grown. The farmers market is excellent. And I dare say that every time we look at the CSR reports and food, the food price index, the local produce is going down right now. It has gone down by 0.2%. So the cost of food has gone to market goods has dropped by 0.2%. Which is, I am going to boast and say we must have a harder, harder hand than that. I'll tell you why.
Since we have started our marketing process and we have started our advertising, we are seeing now that other people who get government funding to do their markets are following suit our farmers. And we can boast about this. Our farmers, our members can mainly say, we are saying to people that you can get a deal at our market. We have brought the, you know, four pounds of tomatoes for $20, you know, two pounds of Karali for $20. And so it goes. So with, with a $100 you can get, you can get fruits, you can get, you know, provision and you can get everything else that is healthy for you. We promoting a healthy lifestyle. Yeah. So, so basically we have expanded our vendors, we have expanded our marketing, our advertising.
That market has proven to be so successful that mostly now we are catering not only for people who go to the market. We are now going to be opening on a Sunday because of the spillover from Saturday.
What we are seeing is this, as long as you are a farmer, you're a member of the sales Farmers support group, you can come in and we will talk to you about selling your product there on a Saturday and Sunday. You don't have to go, you know, and line up in the night and all kind of thing. The market is there, the people there, the buyers are there.
So it's working well. It's working well.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Yeah. You know one of the complaints that we have many times is the cost of produce. I mean just, just a couple days I went on tomorrow. So I see some shed selling it for 20 something dollars upon and bygone melanger, that kind of thing, $16 upon. You ask yourself, well what's causing this thing to be as expensive as it is? And you get the explanation, the middleman who's jacking up the price and all that kind of nonsense with the farmers market, I know that you try, or at least the intention should be to do away with that added cost added to the product. And from what you're saying I assume that it works pretty well.
This is where we're going to have to leave it because we do have another interview scheduled to start in just a couple minutes from now. But for persons who'd like to tell us about the market, what time and where is it located actually and for farmers who'd like to get in touch, give us a number.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: It's simple. We are just obliquely opposite the licenses office in Carriney, in Docks Kampong. We have this huge farmers market sign and you can see it both ways. Both. It's a double sided sign. Just look for the big farmers market sign. That's Walker street in Carony. Just take a first left after the roundabout and you will find us. We are there from six every Saturday to until we sell out. And I'm telling you honestly, most farmers, most members are sold out by 10, 10 30. So try and get there early. The number to call is 320-3150 and you can, you can just come, just come and purchase a small amount of money, but you will be getting a good deal. You're getting a farmer to table deal. No middleman involved? None.
[00:19:46] Speaker B: And the contact number, once again, for persons who want to get involved.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: 320-3150 I want to thank you for.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Being with us here this morning. I hope that people take advantage of this opportunity to, you know, spend less and probably get more for something that we all need, which is food more.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: For less than cash. Definitely.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Definitely. I want to thank you for being with us here this morning and for sharing this information. I'm sure that we'll be speaking again in the not too distant future and so many other things. Thanks.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: Once again, thank you very much. Thank you for having me.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: That's why we dropped the kitchens on our interview here this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, take advantage of it. I mean, because when you say go to market, sometimes do more than scratch your head when you see some of these prices.
