Agriculture Official: There Has to Be Land Planning to Avoid Encroachments with Development

We have reported on agricultural encroachments that persist both on the natural corridors of wildlife, as well as unexcavated archaeological sites. It’s done by farmers who procure land and clear away the natural flora and fauna and whatever else they find in order to farm. Belize is not only heading towards becoming a more self-sustainable country, it is also becoming an exporter of food products.  We spoke with C.E.O. Servulo Baeza in the Ministry of Agriculture, who said that in order for there to be preservation while we develop, all the relevant ministries, departments and agencies would have to come together and forge a plan for responsible development.

Servulo Baeza

Servulo Baeza, C.E.O, Ministry of Agriculture

“There’s a cross-cutting theme from across different ministries because it doesn’t only affect agriculture. There’s no plan per se in terms of land use within the Government of Belize. If there is, I am not aware of it, but there are – I can say that there is thirty-five percent is good for agricultural production. We are only using about fifteen percent right now. There’s an initiative right now in CARICOM to reduce our food imports to the region by twenty-five percent by 2025 and they’re looking at Guyana, Belize and Suriname to be the countries that will produce the food for CARICOM so that we don’t have to be importing from outside of CARICOM. Not necessarily more land, we just have to be more efficient. You might be able to use the same amount of land but just get more out of it. It’s not only agriculture. It has to also include Natural Resources, the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Rural Transformation, all of these ministries have to come together to address those particular issues. Where we have encountered some of these problematic issues, Forestry is contacted to try to set up traps, capture the animals and move them to those protected areas where there’s no hunting and so we try, I think, to ensure that the measures are taken to try to not kill the animal, but sometimes that is inevitable. You hear the time of people digging for a well, let’s say and they find a Maya ruin so it’s something that myself, I think that in terms of those things we need to be a little more proactive. There’s a lot of planning that needs to be done, but it comes with development.”