Agriculture Minister meets with some disgruntled butchers

 

Discussions have started between Minister of Agriculture Floyd Green and the some of the island's butchers who have requested a meeting to outline their concerns with the National Animal Identification & Traceability (NAIT) System 

 

The butchers, who have staged a protest and withdrew their service to highlight the issues, say since the system came into being in 2015, many have been facing serious difficulties obtaining tags and significant delays that hinder their ability to serve customers effectively.

 

On Tuesday, they penned a letter addressed to Minister Green requesting a face to face meeting on December 17.

 

Speaking Thursday on TVJ's Smile Jamaica, Mr. Green said he has since met with two of the butchers and changes will be made to the NAIT system. 

 

"What we've done at the Ministry is to ramp up our tagging processes. We just started a blitz. And I've said to the Ministry team, we have to ensure that if somebody wants their animals to be tagged, despite the fact that it could have been done a long time ago, we have to get to them now. We did 300 in St. Elizabeth and we want to keep the blitzes going. They're coming to Manchester this week."

 

Minister Green said during his meeting with the butchers, they suggested locations where tagging can be carried out, but also outlined several challenges with the system. 

 

"And we're going to deal with that. So I want to assure the butchers that we've heard you. I've said to the team to make some changes. We will monitor it for another week and see what our numbers look like and we will continue the dialogue. We want everybody to have a Merry Christmas. But we also want to stop people who are looking to benefit from the crisis by stealing animals. We can't have that," he maintained.