Not Enough Consumers for Locally Produced Beef

Steward Dyck

The COVID-19 state of emergency, along with the abrupt closure of the unrecognized trading route at Bullet Tree Falls, has left many farmers holding on to livestock that cannot be sold outside of the country.  This, notwithstanding a formal trade agreement established between Belize and Mexico, has left the industry hanging in the balance.  According to Dyck, on several instances they were reassured that they were inching closer to being able to trade with Mexico but that goal post keeps being shifted.

Steward Dyck, Chairman, Blue Creek Cattle Committee

“As you know, the country has been on lockdown for the last few weeks and for the last five or six weeks we haven’t been able to sell any cattle.  This is the driest, hottest part of the year, as everybody is aware, all the smog and the smoke in the air.  This is usually the of the year when the most cattle are being sold and there is, the market being completely cut off really holds us back because about eighty percent of the cattle produced in Blue Creek goes out of the country.  There’s just a big excess and the population of Belize is too small to consume all of the beef that’s grown in Belize, so we have to sell it out of the country and we’ve been working for years and years and years trying to get a formal market to Mexico but there’s a lot of paperwork and a lot of things involved to get that done and we need the help of the government and stuff, but it’s something that’s been quite a challenge.  We feel and we’ve been hearing lately that we’ve been right close.  A few weeks ago, I was told that we were ninety percent ready to sell to Mexico but we never hear that that time has come yet.”