Barbados’ iconic indigenous Black Belly sheep industry has hit a decades-long stagnation, prompting the island’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food and Nutritional Security to draft a comprehensive new growth strategy aimed at reversing the sector’s stalled progress, Agriculture Minister Dr. Shantal Munro-Knight has confirmed. The development comes as a striking contrast to neighboring Guyana, which has grown its own Black Belly sheep population fivefold using breeding stock originally imported from Barbados under a bilateral cooperation agreement.
In an interview with local outlet Barbados TODAY on Tuesday, Munro-Knight revealed that official population data shows the size of Barbados’ domestic Black Belly flock has remained largely unchanged for an extended period, despite years of scattered initiatives to grow the breed. This stagnation has triggered a full-scale review of the industry, covering economic viability, production sustainability, feed infrastructure, and opportunities for value addition that go beyond simply exporting breeding stock.
“The ministry is developing a plan going forward in terms of how we scale the Black Belly sheep in a more sustainable way,” the minister explained. “We’re looking not only at expanding the domestic flock here in Barbados, but also addressing pressing gaps like feed access, and mapping out what added value we can derive from the breed locally.” This new strategy marks the government’s most targeted effort to revitalize the breed in recent years, coming after public concerns were raised in 2023 that unregulated exports of high-quality breeding stock were straining the domestic population while doing little to grow local output.
Guyana’s rapid success with the Barbadian breed dates back to August 2022, when the first shipment of 132 Black Belly sheep arrived under the St. Barnabas Accord bilateral trade and cooperation agreement. By 2024, total exports to Guyana under the deal have reached 1,003 head, and local authorities there have recorded a fivefold increase in their national flock. Munro-Knight confirmed that Barbadian agricultural officials have already traveled to Guyana to study the program, which incorporates cross-breeding of Black Belly sheep with local adapted breeds while maintaining a separate population of pure Barbados Black Belly stock. The ministry will now evaluate whether elements of Guyana’s model can be adapted to support growth in Barbados’ domestic industry.
Top agricultural industry leaders in Barbados have echoed the government’s focus on revitalizing the domestic sector. James Paul, chief executive officer of the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS), argued that the island remains uniquely positioned to lead the development of the breed, which evolved locally over 400 years from African hair sheep and European stock brought to the island in the 1600s. “The Black Belly sheep is native to Barbados, and it has acclimated perfectly to our climate — we have always been and will always be the best breeders of this animal,” Paul said. “We need to refocus on our domestic breeding practices, get back to the genetic development work we did in the past, and return the program to the heights it once reached.”
Munro-Knight emphasized that the new strategy will be rooted in empirical research and full industry analysis, with no final decisions to be announced until the review is complete. “I know we’ve had multiple plans for the Black Belly sheep over the years, but this time it’s getting real, focused attention from the ministry,” she said. “We’re examining every pillar of the industry, from feed production to breeding systems to value addition, and I hope to present a fully fleshed-out, actionable plan very soon.”
Asked to comment on the political controversy surrounding Guyana’s Black Belly sheep program, where opposition leader Azruddin Mohamed has alleged administrative irregularities and lack of contract transparency, Munro-Knight said she was unfamiliar with the details of the dispute. Guyana’s Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha has already dismissed the claims as “false, malicious and entirely without merit.”
Barbados has a long history of exporting Black Belly sheep, with shipments dating back to the early 1900s when breeding stock was sent to Texas, and continuing through 1992, when a shipment of rams and ewes was delivered to Malaysia. Valued globally for its hardiness, high-quality meat production, and ability to adapt to tropical climates, the Barbados Black Belly has been used to develop both pure and cross-bred lines across the world, but its domestic home has struggled to grow its own flock in recent decades.