Turkey Benefits From Bird Flu in Chicken

Lie-Za was all egg-sighted last week when she heard on CNN dey’s ah serious “chicken ‘n’ egg” problem in de US. And to help solve its egg price cry-sis, America is turning to Turkey, de country, that is. Presently my girl is preparing an Ad foh our local Newspaper looking foh anyone wid good layingTurkeys (hens) foh sale.

Seriously though, dis chicken-feed money in Turkey comes as ah result of ah Bird Flu named “Avian,” dat struck de poultry industry since 2022, and killed over 140 million egg laying birds in de USA and still killing. Last November and December Bird Flu killed 17 million egg laying birds. Lard have Yuh mercy, when it ain’t Covid 19! is Swine Flu! now Bird Flu. Officials sound confident dat it is ah Fowl sickness, we hope so.

However de good news foh Turkey is, dey plan to export to the United States this year, 420 million eggs equal to 35 million dozen boxes. Presently in de US, ah dozen large Grade “A” eggs cost US $ 5.00. While some traders limiting egg purchases per customer, others charging an extra US 50-cent per egg; dat’s Black Market foh consumers. It therefore follows dat ah dozen eggs could cost as much as US $11.00 equal to EC$29.00. And wid Easter near on de calendar, consumers will ban dey belly. Just foh interest sake, dat 420 million eggs from Turkey at US $5.00 ah dozen, will generate ah total of US$ 175 million, dat’s ah lot ah cash, in EC$ 472,500 almost half ah billion, the most ever.

So de good lady is wondering how come SVG never seem to get ah bite ah de act-shun when these projects pop up. We are not entirely inadequate in basic infrastructure wid certain projects. Poultry Farming foh example. We have ECGC factory dat continues to delivered animal feed foh years. One ah we problem is we not empowering our young people wid skills and technology to deliver and earn big bucks. We once had Sugar and Rum; soap ,animal feed and oil from coconut; we had our-root; we uses to ship ah boat-load ah bananas every week to de UK. Today we do none of de above. Our import bill is twice what we export. We proudly exported to de UK (Long Staple) Sea Island Cotton, rated de best in de world. Grown and harvested only in de Southern Grenadines and Mustique. Dem days we mainland people discriminated against our brothers and sisters from country and in particular de Grenadines people, calling dem Keys (Cays) Crab. It is embarrassing on hearing dat our young Athletes from Union Island, who came to de mainland last weekend to participate in Athletics, were literally left stranded. And Holiday Inn Hotel is right near to de Stay-dum. In de region we pay 16 % Vat possibly de highest, de lowest wages; highest youth unemployment figures! Number two highest crime figures in de region.

Lie-Za shared ah paragraph from de late Ivan O’Neal, de Green Party leader’s 2014 in-deep-and-dence Ah-dress: “ Successive SVG governments, including the ULP regime, have just hooked up additional umbilical cords to other richer nations. The slave mentality of the ‘begging bowl’ approach still exists”.

Ah love dis Bird Flu story wid its massive egg-deal wid increasing export capacity foh Turkey. We need to get on board way opportunities abound, but we need people wid ah vision dat will take SVG in line wid our regional counterparts. Time foh ah change. And wid at is gone ah gone again.

One Love Bassy

• Bassy Alexander is a land surveyor,  folklorist and social commentator.