Lamb & veal processing underway at Lajas farm
By The Star Staff
Agriculture Secretary Ramón González Beiró recently inaugurated a lamb and veal processing facility, the Tai Hay Farm in the Lajas Valley.
“We in the department are identifying and allocating funds to promote a hike in agribusiness and to ensure a rebound in agricultural activity experiences,” González Beiró said during an event along with Lajas Mayor Jayson Martínez. “We are confident that we will add more farmers to our staff to improve local agriculture and position it in the global arena with the support of the population in businesses here and the consumption of purely Puerto Rican products.”
Through its Agricultural Investment Program, the agency and the farmer each injected $80,193 for an investment that exceeds $160,000 into the Tai Hay Farm production plant, whose sales are aimed at retail and with plans to enter the North American market.
González Beiró revealed that for 2021, $60 million was granted between incentives and direct subsidies to farmers, to develop agricultural projects consistent with the public policy of promoting the cultivation and production of food and increasing the consumption of local products.
The Lajas mayor said “the municipality is in the ideal position to expand agricultural projects in the region, being one of the municipalities with the most fertile land and with the capacity to create new agricultural businesses, for which it makes a call to continue joining efforts to strengthen agriculture.”
Tai Hay Farm President Neftalí Lluch noted during a tour of the farm that with the process used to guarantee the quality of the product “[w]e make sure that our meat is the best on the market in terms of quality, with the right fat and cuts.”
Tai Hay Farm LLC is a company dedicated to raising lambs from gestation to processing and distribution. It has 600 mother sheep that graze freely on 181.6 acres (187 cuerdas) of land. At night they are herded and in the morning they are offered food supplements with the necessary vitamins. Their physical condition is analyzed, ensuring the quality of meat production.