St. John’s, Antigua – Livestock provides us with a source of food that is easily accessible and ordinarily low cost to produce, but the practicality of rearing livestock for farmers in Antigua and Barbuda is gradually becoming out of reach with every year there in insufficient rains.

Climate change is driving up temperatures and prolonging drought conditions in countries such as Antigua and Barbuda, which for over a decade has experienced severe drought which is drying up surface and ground water catchments. Since there is not enough moisture from rains to support the production of feed needed to sustain these animals locally, the cost of operation increases with each animal kept on the farms.

Livestock farmer, Sherwin Parker has known the ways of farming from childhood. In his 30-plus-years’ experience, more needs to be done for farmers in Antigua who are forced to reduce their stock numbers and endure higher operational costs.

“We are presently going through a prolonged drought which hampers the animals’ growth and development a lot. During the rainy season, when we have a lot of grass, the animals are nice and round but when they rain ease up, we have less food growth and less weight,” he said.

He hasn’t had to truck in any food so far this year but last year, he had to transport feed each day to the paddock where he keeps his cows and a few horses.

“I’ve also had to reduce the number of animals in the paddock significantly because of lack of food,” he stated.

No rain naturally means no water to fill the pond on his land and without the rainwater, he drives between two and five miles every day to fill up. “It was completely dry for almost a year and a half, I had to truck the water in,”; “I normally bring in about five drums a day every day,” he said. He said it is an additional cost for fuel and equipment which he uses to pump the water.

So, Mr. Parker was quite happy when his pond filled after a heavy downpour two months ago. Unfortunately, that water has been rapidly evaporating because of the continued dry weather conditions and sporadic heat waves since 2023 began.

In April, the same month that local Climatologist Dale Destin noted as the wettest April in a decade for the island, the Antigua and Barbuda Meteorological Services which he heads, issued an excessive heat wave advisory over a five-day period. Temperatures rose between 38 to 41 °C or 100 to 106 °F.

Temperatures will continue to increase between the months of May and October which has been pegged as the “hot season”. In addition, Mr. Destin forecasts that Antigua will experience a 74 percent chance of below or near-normal rainfall for 2023 and noted that it would be very unlikely that the twin island state will see a wetter than normal year.

Camara Smith owns a pig farm and has had his share of concerns with the heat. It is not only reducing the amount of natural feed that is available to his pigs but it is so hot that even the water he trucks in each month evaporates from the storage tanks.

“On this eastern side it hardly gets rain, when we get rain, it has to be an island wide rain to get rain,” he remarked.

When the weather gets really dry, it costs him $300 to truck water to his farm each month. The lack of water also agitates the animals and causes them to breach their pens and attack the other pigs.

At his old farm Smith reared 300 pigs and had access to water but in this new area, he can house less than a dozen pigs. His decision to move his pen was prompted by praedial larceny which many farmers in Antigua must contend with.

None-the-less, he continues to invest in livestock farming not because it is cheap but instead, he said “It’s something that I like, and I enjoy it”.

A bag of pig feed can cost the farmer as high as $68 a day depending on where it is purchased – that’s upwards of $400 each week.

At the height of the pandemic, Stanford Mings the owner of S&J Farm recalled that it was costly to bring water to his chicken farm. He said two shipments of water cost him over $500 at a time when eggs were not selling off as quickly.

“I sell a lot of eggs to Jolly Beach and Jolly Beach was in the first set, I mean all the hotels closed around the same time,” he recalled.

“Normally you can break even or make a profit but now it’s taking up all of my resources,” he admitted then.

The fact is that countries in the Eastern Caribbean region like Antigua and Barbuda are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change that can present itself in various forms including drought and intensified weather systems which are aided by countries who continue to burn fossil fuels.

The burning has been blamed for global warming as fossil fuels release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which in turn trap heat in our atmosphere. They result in heat waves like those currently experienced in Antigua and Barbuda which will continue to reduce air quality, worsen drought conditions and stagnant food for livestock if the most powerful world leaders do not demand change.

It is imperative that the mass emitters grant small states access resources and help local leader devise policies that can save these animals and by extension save the livelihoods of thousands of people as well as the country’s economy.