By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

An Abaco father-and-son duo say they are “disheartened” that the Government has shown little to no interest in supporting their proposed $500,000 investment to expand egg production nine-fold.

Christopher and Dexter Sawyer, of Sawyer Family Farms, contrasted their treatment - and the allegedly silent response to their three-year outreach effort - with this newspaper’s revelations that Andros-based Blue Hole Farms is set to acquire 130 Crown Land acres for its own $18m egg production facility that it is negotiating with the Government.

However, Jomo Campbell, minister of agriculture and marine resources, contradicted the Sawyers by telling this newspaper that the Government had spoken to them the week before last. He added that it was working to provide assistance to them via the Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC), and an announcement is likely to be forthcoming in the next two to three weeks.

Dexter Sawyer, though, told this newspaper that unless he was “doing some serious sleepwalking” he and his father had “definitely not spoken” to Mr Campbell despite efforts to arrange a meeting with the minister and Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources officials directly and via intermediaries.

He added that his last contact with the ministry was via the secretary for its permanent secretary around three months ago in a failed bid to arrange a meeting, and the duo had “not heard anything else”. Dexter Sawyer said both himself and his father, and their US chick and equipment suppliers, require assurances from the Government on the “rules” they must comply with before they move forward.

Arguing that they had shown Bahamas-based egg production can succeed, having supplied Maxwells and other Abaco food stores with eggs laid by their former 650-strong chick flock, the duo told this newspaper they have the necessary financing and supply chains in place to expand to 6,000 chicks in the first phase and scale up both numbers and production according to market demand.

This first phase, they added, is designed to yield a more than nine-fold increase in egg production from the previous 3,600 per week to 34,000. Dexter Sawyer said Nassau-based merchants and food retailers, who he declined to name, have already voiced an interest in purchasing from them if they can supply a quality product in consistent volumes.

Challenging the Government’s lack of support, especially given its Golden Yolk initiative and desire to become self-sufficient in egg production, Christopher Sawyer told this newspaper: “We’ve been trying so hard with zero results from the Government.

“It took us quite a while to get up and running, and get people to accept locally-grown-eggs. As soon as we figured out all the rough spots and got ready to expand, there was no help from the Government.” Dexter Sawyer said they started out in mid-2022 with their 650-strong “test flock” - before the Government unveiled the Golden Yolk initiative - to show local egg production is feasible and there was demand.

He added that they first reached out to the Government via John Pinder, the MP for south and central Abaco, who “vouched” for them to then-minister of agriculture, marine resources and local government, Clay Sweeting. However, the Sawyers are asserting that efforts to contact both him and now Mr Campbell, his successor, have proven fruitless.

Dexter Sawyer said all the duo are seeking is help “to get us on a bigger scale”, which would assist the Government’s objectives under the Golden Yolk initiative. “A meeting for starters would be wonderful, just so we could sit down and talk about it,” he added.

Pointing out that farmers’ profits are measured in “pennies”, not dollars, especially when it comes to egg production, he added that he and his father are seeking ways to “ease the burden” on themselves given that they still have to pay VAT on all imported materials, equipment and animal feed. 

“Trying to stay competitive against foreign eggs is incredibly difficult,” Dexter Sawyer said. “The farms over there turn out millions of chicks, so they can afford to sell eggs at far lower prices than we can.” Christopher Sawyer added: “We want to expand, but we don’t know what the Government will let us do or not let us do. We don’t want to spend $500,000 and they come and shut us down.”

Further explaining why government support is so essential to Sawyer Family Farms moving forward, Dexter Sawyer said: “We actually have suppliers right now in the US wanting to get us started, but even they refuse to move forward until the Government gives us something in black and white. 

“They want something in black and white before they sell us equipment. They’ve seen governments give projects the ‘thumbs up’ before only to later pull the rug from under them. Our concern is that we don’t want to invest this money and the Government comes and closes us down.”

Dexter Sawyer said they plan to expand to 6,000 egg-laying chicks in the project’s first phase, which would increase egg production from 3,600 per week when they had 650 chicks to 34,000 weekly. If successful, they would bring in another 6,000 chicks in the second phase.

“When we had the full 650 going, we were doing 14,500 eggs a month,” Dexter Sawyer added. “Since then, the Government has taken so long to deal with us that we had to kill off our flock because the chicks have a laying life of two years from when they start laying.

“After two years, the egg production drops off. The daily amount of food you’re putting in for the eggs is not worth it. We had to kill-off the flock.” He revealed that Sawyer Family Farms, located in south Abaco about one mile away from Abaco Big Bird, had even struggled to obtain a correct copy of the lease for its land from the Government.

Pledging to supply “as much as the market will take” if the expansion proceeds, Dexter Sawyer added: “We’ve been in touch with certain merchants from Nassau. I’m not at liberty to say who they are, but they’ve said that once we’re scaled up to give them a call.

“We’re not asking for the world. It’s just consistent co-operation and the Government looking out for us as farmers. The price of foreign eggs is of great concern to us. We’ve done the best with shipping and VAT to be as competitive as possible. For a great number of months, our best-priced egg has been the same as their’s, and a great number are cheaper than the foreign eggs.”

Scaling the business up would allow the Sawyers to take on paid employees. “At this 650 chickens, which is a lot to keep up with, at this size it wasn’t feasible to bring on other persons,” Dexter Sawyer added, “and pay them a reasonable wage.

“My father and I have never collected salaries from the farm. We put this effort in as proof of concept to see if Bahamians would like local eggs and if we can compete with foreign producers. We’ve never taken a salary from the business. Every time we expand there’s going to be more employees. The floor level for this to make any type of reasonable money to support employees and economies of scale is 6,000 chicks. That’s the low level.”

Sawyer’s Family Farm’s expansion would take six to eight months to become fully operational from the time it is initiated, with equipment requiring an installation timeline of two months and a further six needed before chicks start laying eggs.