Livestock improvement in the West Indies has mainly taken the form of upgrading of
crossbred native livestock with imported stock, and efforts made by the various govern-
ments have met with some success. In Jamaica, however, the development of a local
type of dual purpose cattle has gone rather further, and the Jamaica Hope is considered
a breed in its own right. Recently much controversy has taken place as to whether this
breed can become the basis for an expanding dairy industry. Many authorities favour the
Holstein. Since this argument has not yet been resolved by the specialists it is difficult
for us to quantify the likely effects of genetic improvement on output. In any case, the
effects of improvement on the higher quality stock are likely to be marginal. Of far
greater importance are the large numbers of low quality and scrub livestock which tend
to downgrade the herd in all territories. This problem is likely to be a long term prob-
lem, but we except some improvement within the period with which we are concerned.
Nevertheless we are rather doubtful whether genetic improvements will be as important
as improvements in herd and pasture management in the hoped for increase in yields.

 Nutritional deficiencies have been one cause of disease in livestock, but have only been
a major problem in areas where there has been over-stocking, particularly when associa-
ted with long droughts. Only in British Guiana is foot and mouth disease endemic; there
it led to serious mortality in 1955 and again in 1960. The control of this disease is ex-
tremely difficult in a territory which has vast frontiers in common with other underde-
veloped and underpopulated countries, and we have felt it necessary to allow for the pos-
sible effects of this disease when projecting production of beef for British Guiana.

 Perhaps the second most serious livestock disease is the Newcastle disease of poultry.
This has reduced the poultry floc k in Trinidad and Tobago to rather less than half the number tha
had been planned. Here again we find difficulty in assuming that this disease can be completely
controlled in the near future, although some improvements in control are already evident.


Fertilizers
 The sugar industry in the West Indies switched from using mainly pen manure to the
larger scale utilisation of chemical fertilizers in the 1940's, and there is little doubt that
the increases in yields experienced in most territories in the past decade are largely the
result of better fertilizing practices.

 The following figures indicate the extent to which the use of fertilizers has increased
within recent years:

 Imports of fertilizers by territories, 1950, 1955, 1958, 1959

 Territory 1950 1955 1958 1959
 1,000 tons
 Jamaica 13.2 22.8 37.8 41.4
 Trinidad and Tobago 6.0 18.6 20.3 20.2
 Barbados 12.6 14.5 15.6 15.6
 British Guiana N. A. 17.2 26.9 1/ 24.0

 1/ 1960.
 Source: Data and material developed during the study and other available data.


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