It’s an unending story that need not be. Scarcity and high prices, then overproduction, then pleas to the government to purchase the surplus. The situation is a consequence of wrong business decisions taken by Dominican agriculture businessmen. Hard-pressed by more produce than there is a demand, the producers traditionally have turned the issue into a political matter, appealing to government indulgence. Nothing is different today. It happened just recently the tobacco crops, and now the same lack of planning is affecting poultry producers and swine producers. The poultry producer situation can ironically be traced back to Hurricane Georges when installations of major poultry producers were destroyed. Companies took advantage of insurance money to revamp and expand their production capacity. High prices also encouraged smaller producers to increase their supply. Today, there is an overabundance of production and prices are falling below production costs. El Siglo newspaper reports that poultry prices at the farm are under RD$5.00 the pound. The National Poultry Commission wants Minister of Agriculture Amilcar Romero to back up their request to the government INESPRE facility to buy up the surplus for a strategic reserve. They say there are an accumulated excess of 3.5 million pounds of poultry that they would like the government to purchase at RD$6.50 the pound. They fear the bankruptcy of hundreds of small and medium-sized producers. The surplus is also affecting profitability of the larger firms. El Siglo newspaper report explains that production is about 12.5 million chickens a month, with consumption being regularly around 12 million pounds. During Lent, chicken consumption traditionally drops. Porcine producers are suffering from a similar situation. They want to force local sausage manufacturers to buy up their production. The National Porcine Commission says there is an excess of 45,000 units in porcine farms. José Alba, said that producers are losing RD$3.50 on the kilo that is going for RD$14. To protect their production, they talked Congress into slapping a 25% import tariff on imported pork trimmings used by the sausage manufacturers. Janet Rivera, of the market leading sausage manufacturer, Induveca, told the Listín Diario, "This is not a problem of tariffs, nor imports, but of planning, supply and demand." She said that the producers can’t possibly breed 15 or 20 times more than what consumers can buy. She says the farmers cannot sacrifice the pigs to just sell them trimmings. If this were done, then the price of pork meat would decline even more. She said Dominicans have become accustomed to consuming pork sausages, and not fresh meat. Induveca consumes 42% of the national pork production, of which their farms produce 25%. Janet Rivera is also advocating that the government pick up the tab for the porcine producers, as it accepted to do with tobacco producers and now could do with the poultry producers.
