Central American agriculture officials meet

With just over a week to go before Central American Agriculture Ministers meet in Belize, representatives of the region’s health and agricultural organisation called OIRSA, got busy today. Their purpose was to review the results of a two-day technical meeting held earlier this week, as well as to discuss an upcoming ministerial meeting in Belize. OIRSA’s Acting Representative in Belize, Fermin Blanco, says Belize’s proposals, if approved, would mean a significant improvement in agriculture.

Fermin Blanco, Acting Country Representative, OIRSA

“In the plant health section we proposed that Belize be accepted as a medfly free country by our Central American countries. The green light has been approved by the technical directors, now all we have to do is follow the procedure to officially accept Belize as medfly free from our partners in Central America. That’s one of the proposals. The other one was to continue financing the Pink Hibiscus Mealy Bug Programme that we are running here for two more years; that was approved.”

Other proposals on the table include the transformation of OIRSA from an all-Spanish to a bi-lingual organization, as well as a new component entitled food safety. These technical meetings take place twice annually to discuss measures and programmes to prevent, control and eradicate plant and animal diseases.