When does exporting livestock from Canada benefit local farmers in the Caribbean?

When goats can fly.

Against great odds, Trinidadian farmer and businessman Lincoln Thackerie will start populating his Merlisse Farm, and his island nation, with 300 Canadian goats that will help build a local dairy and meat sector to reduce its reliance on imported food. And it's all thanks to a local couple -- Ron and Adele Service from Black Walnut Lane Farm in Millgrove.

The 300 goats were to be loaded on a jumbo cargo jet at Hamilton's airport late last night for their journey to the Caribbean early this morning. It will cost many thousands of dollars, and Thackerie is picking up the tab.

It's not the first time the Trinidadian farmer has imported our livestock to increase local food production. For seven years, he has imported sheep from the Services. Before he found their farm on the Internet, he already owned the largest flock of sheep in the Caribbean, but was interested in other breeds for crossbreeding to produce meatier lambs.

Several times the Services have worked through all the veterinarian and customs checks and crated up a dozen or so lambs, along with a couple of meat goats.

They travelled south together on Zoom Airlines with one of the Services in economy class, and their livestock in the climate-controlled cargo hold.

In the fall of 2008, Thackerie decided to import 30 or 40 goats. He was looking for a couple of breeds to give a slow start to a home grown milk and cheese industry.

  " We have a long-standing relationship with Adele (Service)," explains Thackerie.
 "She was familiar with the protocol, knew the ins and out of ensuring the animals' health and safety."

 To find top notch breeding stock, Service called on Lloyd Wicks, a knowledgeable Ontario Farmer from Bobcaygeon, who has organized four international Goat Symposiums.

Supporting local food systems is something Wicks feels strongly about, whether it is in our own country or elsewhere.

Plans for the late summer goat shipment in 2008 were grounded when Zoom Airlines went bust. The company's bankruptcy put Thackerie's small herd on hold, and led to a much bolder move.

"There was no other commercial passenger carrier that could take that shipment," says Service.

"It took a year and a half to come to the conclusion that if this shipment was to go ahead, we would have to lease a cargo plane."

To make the added expense worthwhile, they realized they would have to fill it with almost 10 times as many animals.

With Wicks' connections, Service managed to assemble the livestock from all across Canada, including Howcrest Farm in Caledonia.

Aileen Dekker, co-owner of Howcrest, also recognizes the wisdom and potential in building local food systems. "We get a lot of calls from people wondering where they can find goat milk. People need to start asking at their local grocery store so they will start carrying it."

"Our industry is young; it doesn't have a lot of money, yet, for promotion. But it meets the needs of immigrant populations that are  used to drinking goat milk.

Some of those new immigrants come from the Caribbean, where the potential for the dairy goat industry is great."

"We don't have many farmers left," Thackerie explains of the situation in Trinidad.

"They are getting out, since milk prices dropped on the International market.

When dairy farmers could no longer make an adequate income, they also stopped producing beef, since it is the male calves born to dairy cows that are sold for meat.

It has been a blow to Trinidad's security. While they grow commodity  crops like rice, sugar, citrus and cocoa, 75 per cent of their domestic food is imported. About 95 percent of their goat supply is imported."

This morning those statistics will start to change when Thackerie's 300 dairy goats land on the tarmac of Port of Spain.

Considering currency exchange, the expense of chartering a cargo jet a, the adjustment the livestock will need to make to feed and climate, why ship them so far away?

"Canada has the best genetics," says Thackerie.

John Borely, head of extensions and education for the sheep and goat program with the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Marine Resources, said the shipment is key because they need to increase their local livestock numbers instantly. He said there is a lot riding on the development of heir local agricultural sector.

"We've got to find a way to make this work. There will be a lot of people with high expectations."