Barbados Dairy Farmers Brace for Bleak Milk Output Amid Predicted Heat Wave

Weather predictions of a sweltering heat wave over the next three months have dairy farmers forecasting a bleak milk output.

And with milk production still not fully recovered from last year’s record heat, consumers are already reporting shortages at retail outlets. With the influx of winter season tourists demand appears to have risen, Barbados TODAY was told, though this could not be immediately confirmed.

Amid the grim outlook, dairy farmers’ plans for the government to shore up their investment in imported heifers to offset the losses appear to have hit a snag.

In its latest publication, the Barbados-based Caribbean Climate Outlook Forum (CariCOF) calls for near-record warm temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean from March to May, as the El Niño phenomenon wanes in the Pacific Ocean.

The region will transition into a much warmer than usual heat season with recurrent heat waves as early as April, according to the CariCOF outlook.

President of the Barbados Beef and Dairy Farmers’ Association Annette Beckett told Barbados TODAY on Wednesday that there was little to nothing farmers could do against extreme heat. With conditions likely to be the same as last year’s, she anticipated low supplies of milk to Pine Hill Dairy, the island’s lone milk processor.

Many farmers’ herds also did not recover from last year’s scorching heat that put the animals under severe heat stress, adding to the dairy industry’s woes.

August 2023 was the hottest August on record, surpassing pre-industrial age averages. It was also the second hottest month ever recorded – bested only by the previous month.

As farmers grappled with blistering stress on heat-sensitive heifers, they reported a 15 to 20 per cent decline in milk production.

PHD parent Banks Holdings Limited recorded milk intake levels for August and September at 7.2 per cent lower than 2022’s output and 9.3 per cent lower than in 2021.

“There is no strategy to deal with extremely high temperatures,” Beckett explained. “We can deal with above average but not extreme. What you do for above average you do for extreme but it doesn’t work and that is why we are in the position we are in.

“Last year, we would have done everything we could have and we still saw the cows not eating, barely able to get to the water. The milk production went down and in some cases, the animals developed tick fever because they multiply better and are more resilient in warm conditions. So they infest the cows, and when that happens, that cow has a problem for five to six days and if you have to treat it, depending on the medication you use, you cannot milk it for another four or five days. Then, having not been milked for all that time, that cow has to get back its usual milk production level and it never gets back where it left; it has to be built back up.”