Minister Mai on Damage Assessment for Agriculture Sector

Jose Abelardo Mai

While with the Minister of Agriculture, the media also asked for an update on the damage assessment to the agriculture sector, following Hurricane Lisa. Minister Jose Abelardo Mai shares detail on the final report on the impact of the natural disaster on the sector, which has been submitted to NEMO. He also gave an update on the Sembrando Vida program that will see farmers benefit from financial support.

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture, Food Security & Enterprise

“We have submitted a final report to NEMO; that’s the proper procedure. We have completed that study and submitted to them.  I will tell you that the area most affected was the Cayo area – sugar cane, fruit trees along that path where the hurricane passed over. We were fortunate that much of the corn crop had already been harvested – thank God for that or we would have suffered serious losses. We had some losses in soy beans, but fruit trees were affected a lot.”

Reporter

“One of the plans under PlanBelize was the Sembrando Vida initiative. How is that coming along?”

Jose Abelardo Mai

“The Sembrando Vida – the first disbursement is expected to be done in the next two weeks, week and a half, to the first hundred farmers. So the Sembrando Vida team is in Belize at this time doing the final preparations. They will start doing verification this week so that is well under way.”