In a bid to improve food security among the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states, nine poultry processing plants in the Region have been approved to trade among Member States.
This announcement was made by the CARICOM Secretariat yesterday via a press release that stated the approval among the Member States came at the 71st Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) on Agriculture last Friday.
As such, poultry plants from Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago were given the go ahead to sell poultry products intraregionally after they were evaluated by the Regional Risk Assessments Teams and have met the sanitary requirements to enter the CARICOM Market.
According to the release, the assessment of the nine poultry processing plants was coordinated by the Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency (CAHFSA) and was reviewed and finalized by the CARICOM Committee of Chief Veterinary Officers.
The statement said that the Ministers lauded the development and urged the Member States to adopt the Specifications for Poultry and Poultry Products which were developed by the Caribbean Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ) and approved by the COTED in 2013.
Additionally, COTED has also resolved the matter of duck meat trade between Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname, which will allow Trinidad and Tobago to approve Suriname as one of the countries that has met all the SPS requirements for exporting duck meat within 30 days.
