Bayford’s Livestock Centre Of Excellence Re- Launched

Basseterre, St. Kitts, October 14th , 2020 (ZIZ News): Activities to commemorate World Food Day 2020 continued on Wednesday with the official re-launch of the Bayford’s Livestock Centre of Excellence in a ceremony held at Bayford’s Estate.

Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Marine Resources, Hon. Alexis Jeffers explained that the re-launch of the livestock centre comes as part of the Department of Agriculture’s efforts to ensure food security and to decrease the federation’s reliance on imported meat.

“This is a dramatic and significant transformation of some 183 acres of land into a livestock centre of excellence which will directly benefit the farmers and the country as a whole. It is the start of a tremendous programme aimed at promoting food security by increasing livestock production through the implementation and modern and sustainable techniques with the view to significantly reduce the gap between imported and locally produced meat.

He added that through the Bayford’s Livestock Centre of Excellence a number of activities will take place including the establishment of breeding programmes that will “maintain and support sustainable improvement in livestock production.”

“The work here at Bayford’s Livestock Centre of Excellence would include a new abattoir with modern meat processing facilities and capabilities, a poultry slaughtering and processing facility, a rabbit slaughtering facility, swine breeding programme, cattle breeding programme, small ruminant breeding programme and…a hatchery.”

The Minister also mentioned that the first phase of work on the Bayford’s Livestock Centre is on-going and it includes the paddock rehabilitation, fencing repairs, building repairs, construction of holding areas trimming and removal of overgrown trees and garbage.

During his remarks, Prime Minister, Dr. Hon. Timothy Harris has committed to giving his support to the initiatives under the Ministry of Agriculture.

“I will try hard to give support to the projects and proposals that will come from the Ministry of Agriculture so that the lives of our farmers could be better and richer, the lives of the people of St. Kitts and Nevis can be healthier and we can in fact begin to improve upon our revenues to exporting our products to some of the neighboring islands and importing less leaving the scarce foreign reserve to do other things that are necessary.”

During the ceremony there were performances from calypso artiste King Socrates and steel pan player Melvin Hewlette.