"We now see an upturn. there is a revival in the dairy sector, prices have gone up . There is almost equality between the cost of production and what the farmer is earning at the farm gate. There has been an obvious increase in the price of cattle in the beef sector," she told JIS News.

The research director said however, that the increase in the price of beef has attracted the interest of praedial larcenists, and farmers have been losing their prized animals. She noted that the National Passport System developed by the Ministry should help to address the problem.

The programme was implemented as a pilot last September.

"We are now at a stage where we are analysing the results. Of the 5,000 animals that were slated to be tagged, we tagged a little over 3,000 because one of the large farms did not want to participate.

We are still trying to get them to participate but that pilot has already been done and so we are now able to look at future costing and what not to do for a national programme," Holness told JIS News.

She noted that within the next five years, it would become mandatory for all farmers to have their animals tagged and registered under some formal system, which would provide for security, disease surveillance and easy identification.

Source: The Jamaica Observer