How Caribbean Broilers Group figures reveal Jamaica experiencing Chicken Shortage in Christmas 2015

Is there really a shortage of chicken in Jamaica? Or is it a case of a lone Wholesaler crying wolf over chicken?

I'm not quite sure either, as a Kingston wholesaler has claimed that there is indeed a shortage of chicken as noted in the article “No Shortage Of Chicken, Just High Demand, Says Caribbean Broilers”, published Wednesday December 23, 2015, The Jamaica Gleaner.

 

Apparently, that Kingston wholesaler ordered some chicken, but was unable to have it fulfilled. This fits with what I'd predicted in my blog article entitled “SERHA warns of Salmonella laced Eggs - Why Salmonella Poisoning on the Rise as Egg and Meat Shortage loom” as it relates to a Chicken Shortage.

In fact, as recently as November 2015 some from Downtown vendors were reselling chicken meat and Eggs from the Riverton City Dump as noted in my blog article entitled “How Discarded Meat from Riverton City Dump is still being sold in Downtown Kingston”.  

This is basically chicken and eggs that was confiscated due to the Avian Flu aka H5N2 outbreak in US of A and Canada earlier in February 2015.  So is this Chicken Shortage the real deal?

Jamaica experiencing Chicken Shortage in Christmas 2015 - Dr Keith Amiel figures reveal supply imbalance 

It might not be, albeit it's hard to tell based on the arguments presented by Corporate affairs manager at Caribbean Broilers Group, Dr Keith Amiel.

He claims that this is the usual demand for chicken meat during the Christmas period, as hinted at a survey conducted six weeks prior that suggested that 88% of Jamaicans polled consumed chicken.

He also claims that supplies of chicken are enough to give every Jamaican 2 lb of chicken.

Not sure where the stats came from, as I'm not able to confirm either, but if true that's almost 5,400,000 lb (2,449,398 Kg) of chicken, assuming Jamaica's population is 2,700,000.

This matches back to the 2.5 million to 2.7 million kilograms of chicken meat that Dr Keith Amiel says is ready for Jamaican to consume for the busy Christmas weekend.

So why was the wholesaler unable to get their order of Chicken? Possibly because some Jamaica are having over relatives and friends both locally and from abroad.

This simply mean that 2lb of chicken will not feed so many people, even if you could buy 2lb of chicken for every Jamaican coming to eat Christmas Dinner with you.. Worse many cannot even afford to buy so much chicken, muchless Chicken back.

With no easing on the import ban on chicken and Eggs by the Ministry of Agriculture in 2016, expect shortages and higher prices in 2016 as noted in my blog article entitled “How the Drought of 2015 means higher prices for Jamaican Christmas 2015 and Easter 2016”.

Technical, we're now in the midst of a Chicken and Egg shortage, as the supply of chicken clearly cannot scale to meet the increasing Christmas demand now and into 2016.