Vegetable Farmers Meet to Discuss 2022/2023 Crop Production

Vegetable producers from across the country met this morning in Belmopan for the National Vegetable Stakeholders Meeting.  The annual session addressed the current status of the national vegetable crop production season 2022-2023.  Present at the meeting were farmers, personnel from the Belize Agriculture Health Authority, the Belize Marketing and Development Cooperation, as well as extension officers from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Enterprise.  Among the priority crops discussed were lettuce, celery, potatoes, purple cabbage and onions.  Other items discussed included the constraints being faced by farmers in respect of productivity, harvesting and marketing of their produce.

William Can

William Can, District Agriculture Coordinator

“Here is where we present the data, the status of our local production, especially the import commodities that we produce seasonally.  Here, we come and share the status of how they are performing.  Here we discuss challenges, opportunities and how best we could assist the farmers for marketing their produce.  And again, we are also here to tell the farmers and consumers that everybody demands quality and consistency.  So it’s looking at the whole production [and] marketing to the end to the consumers.  But the main objective of this meeting is to share with our farmers at the national level how our crops are performing.  Right now we are in the main season [and] all the imported commodities, except for broccoli and cauliflower are closed, our import permits are closed.  That means that right now most of the produce that are out there are produced locally, it’s local production.”