The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

An Abaco poultry producer yesterday disclosed it has received a $40,000 “small climate grant” to finance the installation of solar energy at its farm.

Lance Pinder, Abaco Big Bird Poultry’s operations manager, told Tribune Business the grant was obtained through a combination of Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Agriculture, Marine Resources and Family Island Affairs and Small Business Development Centre (SBDC) assistance.

The company had been working on the grant since April last year, and is now only waiting on the supplier and contractor to begin work. “The money has gone to the vendor to begin the installations, so now it’s just up to them to put it in,” Mr Pinder said. “Part of the funding is a little complicated; not all of the funding is there yet. But I hope the rest of it comes soon.

“There is a little background story there where the Government had promised to help subsidise some of my electricity, so they kind of merged the two things together. Some of it came from Finance, and some of it came from the Ministry of Agriculture and the SBDC. Remember back in April when they were going to lower the duty rates on the chicken?

“Now the Government said they would try to help subsidise my electricity to offset any problems I incurred. So the subsidy that they basically gave me for the months after that went towards the $40,000 grant. So part of the grant came from the SBDC and the Smart Climate Fund, and other funds came from the Ministry of Finance.”

Mr Pinder said the solar initiative is a “better idea” than the Government just subsidising Abaco Big Bird as this would result in the Government sending money to the poultry farm every month as opposed to enhancing the farm’s infrastructure. “We just have a few more details to go through, so hopefully we will have it completed soon,” he added.

However, the solar upgrades may not result in lower chicken prices because “everything has doubled” over the past two years. The reduction in energy consumption is only one part of Abaco Big Bird’s production costs. “I don’t see the prices of anything that I’m selling going down any time soon,” Mr Pinder said.

“Unfortunately with the solar, it’s probably going to be only enough to keep the electricity bill where it is now considering the fuel price increase and the fuel surcharge increases. Everything else has gone up. We’ve been getting hammered from everything. We have just been getting hammered.

“Like the boxes you put the chicken in, they are more than double where they were. The feed is more than double what it was. Before inflation, and I calculated it, in order for me to grow out a batch of chickens it cost me $50,000. Now it costs me $110,000 to grow out a batch of chickens.”