Meat production rose in the Dominican Republic over the last four years, with beef up 5.02% and pork up 11.9%. Poultry production, however, did not rise at the same pace, reported in today?s Listin Diario economic section. In fact, reporter Jairon Severino says that poultry fell 9% over the past year. According to the livestock department of the Agriculture Ministry, poultry production fell from 185,000 tons to 168,000 tons during 2003. Poultry producers attribute production lag to the exchange-rate crisis that forced their costs to grow. On the other hand, beef production has risen from 69,000 tons in the year 2000 to 75,000 tons last year. Pork production has also shown signs of a recovery, at least over the past four years. In fact, pork production is up 217% over 1990 levels, and up 7,683 tons over 2002. Pork imports have fallen by 89.2% over these same four years.