Belize Poultry Association incensed over license give to import Poultry
There is a report tonight that a license has been issued for the importation of a huge amount of poultry. It has the Belize Poultry Association up in arms because of the health risks involved in the importation of the poultry from Mexico. The license was issued by the Belize Agricultural Health Authority to a producer in Shipyard, Orange Walk. But according to BPA chairman, Jake Rempel, ten thousand broiler chicks were imported from Mexico, without proper inspection and risk analysis. Rempel says that is a major concern since Mexico has several prevalent poultry diseases, including different strains of Newcastle disease. The BPA feels that BAHA has undermined its investments in poultry disease surveillance as well as a memorandum of understanding signed between the two bodies for collaborative work.
Via Phone: Jake Rempel, Chairman, Belize Poultry Association
“To our understanding it hasn’t gone the correct way because the guys from BAHA, which would do the inspections weren’t informed about it. As far as we can see, it was illegally done and the surveillance program, which usually is mandatory wasn’t done and that is our concern. Our main concern is disease; it’s not a big issue that ten thousand chickens were imported, the issue is… were they clean? The BPA would think that Mexico wouldn’t be a clean country disease-wise where they come from and I couldn’t give you the names of all the diseases but including avian influenza, which Mexico does have and it came as far as Campeche, which is close to where these chickens came from. So that would be our main issue where we would be afraid of disease-wise. The BPA has been fighting diseases in Belize; we have our own diseases which we are fighting which the BPA is spending a lot of money on. We’re also financing the BAHA group in certain areas where they help us with containing diseases and also doing surveillance to find out what we do have and where are clean so that we can stay clean. That’s our main concern, disease, and it shouldn’t have happened like that overnight. We had a meeting with BAHA to see how many permits they did give and we were informed by BAHA that they only gave one permit for twenty thousand chicks but the importer hadn’t gotten the twenty, he only got ten. But that permit is expired if he imports, whatever he does import that expires the permit and BAHA didn’t give him another one. We have the understanding that he has asked for two, but BAHA only gave him one. We had a meeting with BAHA and we hope this isn’t gonna happen again because we are trying to keep our country free of disease and calling our products clean whereas we couldn’t do that when it’s imported.”
Delahnie Bain
“This importation, are we under producing? Why was it necessary?”
Via Phone: Jake Rempel
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to talk too much on the television about this but we have some diseases in country which can be controlled with vaccinations and so on. He claims that he got some of those and he wasn’t happy, he was looking for a better way of chickens. The way see it, it’s a much bigger risk where he got it from than from here. The only reason we can come up with is that he thought he would try something better.”
Delahnie Bain
“Okay, so it’s just one company that wanted this import.”
Via Phone: Jake Rempel
“That’s right.”
The BPA has also met with the mayors of Shipyard, Spanish Lookout and Blue Creek to discuss the importation and prevention of a repeat.
just one more way the Ministry of Ag is screwing the Belizean farmer. Way to go Montero and your UDP kingdom
Enough of the red and enough of the blue…. give it to the independents!
if it means cheaper chicken and one less monopoly in this country, then why it is a problem? as long as they are disease free…the guy even said that there are diseases in Belize already!
The problem with the importation of chicken is that for one it offsets the market. Local chicken production employs a significant amount of Belizeans and contributes greatly to the local economy. The importation of these chickens at cheaper prices affects the bottom line of local producers. If local producers are not profitable they need to release workers, if workers are released then they have no money to spend…… do you see my point. It has a domino effect on this sector of the economy. Of course my explanation is a more simplified version of a more complex system. Secondly, it is very probable that without the proper regulations in place, there is the likelihood of contamination which would spell bigger problems for everyone. It is the government’s responsibility to protect our local producers so as to remain competitive. All this is doing is making one more well connected individual richer – sure it might lower the price of chicken but does this benefit outweigh the cons? In order for our society to progress and develop we must employ shared sacrifice. Buy local people, it benefits us all!
Everyone knows other country like US, Mexico and these big over populated places pump much more chemicals and steroids into their meat produce to get more out of them. Do we really want these produce in our country to make us more sick than we already are? Come on be open minded be informed. Cheap is not always good. Think about the long term impacts economically when they have to increase NHI to cope with all the effects of too much hormones, etc. in our system.
what makes it really interesting is that most of the local chicken that sell on our local supermarkets all of them comes bruised up. many time my wife needs to thrown away a lot of the chicken since they are purple and when cook it looks black really unhealthy. this issue the health department should look at it more closely. now we are getting chicken from small venders that grow the chicken and sale them bruised free and fresh. hope I ain’t the only one that is disliking this chicken issue.
I strongly believe that the report is flawn, better you investigate what is the real problem. Everytime their is something that benefit the consumer, you have business complaining about an issue, while they mess up the CONSUMERS. Also we have to understand the Landy Habet is in the poulty association, he can be blowing things out of proportion during this time for political mileage. Their ware many products in neightbouring countries superior than our ones and better prices, so we have to see the complete picture before enter any partisan comment.
COST PER POUND…is all that counts. WILL IT BE CHEAPER???
CHICKEN IS TOO EXPENSIVE RIGHT NOW.
why the need to import? are we so huge a country that we cannot provide chicken for ourselves? that is just money that could have put to better use wasted.
let’s pass a law that says we are doing this correctly and Belizeans are happy. No worry, everything good. All problems made illegal.
instead of importing why doesn’t Belize raising more of their own good tasting chickens as well it can provide more jobs in Belize .. Belize needs smarter leaders !
the mennonites should be more concerned about the dirty poultry guatemalan trucks that enter their poultry farms to buy chicken rather than the one day old chicks free of diseases and certified by the Mexican Authorities.
Belize chickens (in the picture) are not being raised in health conditions. They don’t get to be in the Sun, and they don’t even get to scratch in the sand…like real chickens.
If they will keep them in cages, they need to have at least TWO SQUARE FEET PER BIRD.
Now I think twice when passing Lee Chee….
@Charlie Pride, you are so right My Brother. These chickens are confined to a very small area for 2 to 3 months when they are ready for the table. We eat sad, dirty, obessed and stressed out chicken. Search the website just to have an idea how our chickens are handled before being ready to be packed. Not a healthy source of food. Here in Belize, the growers do not tell us what our chickens eat. They eat their own brothers parts along with the feed grinned together. They are not killed the way how they should be killed. Most of these chickens are shocked to death and placed into the hot water to be feathered. All or most of the blood remains in the bird. It is not healthy. MI BILISHAN PIPLE, GRO U OUN FOWL INNA U BAK YAAD. THEY ARE HEALTHIER. Less meat on our daily diets is even healthier. Blessings My Belizeans!!!