CARDI opens new H.Q. at Central Farm
Every Wednesday we feature a different chef preparing a tempting taste treat for our hungry bellies. But behind every exotic recipe lies a basic Belizean food product. Today News 5?s Patrick Jones travelled to Central Farm where scientists and other professionals are working hard to make sure that those foodstuffs are both abundant and healthy.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
The transformation of a former Ministry of Agriculture mechanic shop into office space and research centre for the Caribbean Agriculture Research and Development Institute, marks the beginning of a new era for the regional organization in Belize. Country Representative Anhil Sinha says relocation of the CARDI?s offices to Central Farm puts all of its operations under one roof.
Anhil Sinha, CARDI Country Representative
?Any work to be done in the lab or in the field, whatever coming from the field we have to do inside the building. We have driers, we have seed cleaners, storage, cleaning up all grains, or anything, seeds, we do the storage. Plus you have seen here the lab facilities which are for seeds as well as grain.?
CARDI has been doing research work in the country and contributing to Belize?s agriculture sector since 1976. And while the bulk of the organization?s work goes without publicity, Sinha says a lot has been accomplished for Belize through CARDI?s work.
Anhil Sinha, CARDI Country Representative
?We have provided a lot of work on peanuts which Belize never was producing. Based of CARDI?s work Belize became self sufficient in peanut production as well as they started to export also. Similarly black eye peas which up to 1991 Belize was not knowing anything about black eye peas, and then we started working on them. From 1992 we started to export, and presently we are exporting almost more than three million dollars worth of black eye peas, not only to CARICOM now, but South America, Brazil and European countries also.?
While the new facility will give the regional research organization more space to carry out its in house programmes, out in the field farmers are experiencing a situation that is approaching crisis proportions. Most of the seeds for the next crop have been planted, but the rain necessary for germination has been absent. Unless the weather changes soon, the next crop will be severely affected.
Frank Redmond is one of the farmers that are high and dry and hoping for rain. Redmond says excessive rains in May washed out a lot of the seeds that were planted and in some cases; the replanted crops are still sitting in the ground.
Frank Redmond, G.M., Palm Spring Farms
?We?ve had probably in the order of three to four inches on the fields and we need in the order of twenty to twenty-two inches of rainfall to have good corn crops. So around the Cayo district you are gong to see a lot of fields that are all shrivelled up and dry, and we would not expect yields around this area to be anything better than about fifteen bags an acre of corn.?
But it?s not just corn that is being affected by the severe dry weather. Redmond says even if the rains should start in the coming days, farmers in the area will still suffer some serious economic loss, estimated to be in the millions of dollars.
Frank Redmond
?To those that started planting late May, early June, no. Some of us didn?t put all our eggs in one basket. Some of us planted about a month ago when we had a little rain. Those crops will more than likely rebound, but of course then we are running into the risk of harvesting those in November. And as you know, traditionally November is very wet. So we may have problems harvesting in November. Farming is a gamble; it?s a big risk. And these are the kinds of risks that farmers take.?
Minister of Agriculture Servulo Baeza says while there is little anyone can do to mitigate the effects of the weather on the crops, technical advice is one way that his ministry can offer to help ease the impact on farmers.
Servulo Baeza, Minister of Agriculture
?Where possible, in the case of some small farms, we are looking at probably see if we can come up with some seeds that we will try to make available to them, again for re-planting, but these are some difficult times and we are seeing if we can certainly give that type of assistance to them.?
?As of right now we don?t my technicians are telling me it?s hard to say whether we will any shortages of some of our basic grains. You know that right now is normally the time fro planting corn, so if there is any shortage it will come in the type of feed for animals and livestock, which certainly will have an impact on us, but is very hard for us to give any type of measure right now.?
And in keeping with its mandate, Sinha says CARDI will use this year?s experience to generate contingency plans for future occurrence of this weather phenomenon.
Anhil Sinha,
?I am here for more than twenty years and I have never seen this dry weather from June to August. So you can imagine in this twenty years time I have not seen it means that it is clearly unusual and hot also.?
Patrick Jones
?So this year is going to be precedence setting so far as the weather is concerned??
Anhil Sinha
?Yes, and I think what we have to do with the Climate Change Unit here in Belize, we have to work with them and develop some models, how to predict when we get this type of weather. So Dr. Parham, who is our executive director, he is approaching that direction, that we should do some work on that so that we can predict when we will have this type of weather. So that we can plan according to that.?
Servulo Baeza
?I do believe that our farmers are some hard working people, are some very resilient people and we will survive. What we have to do as a ministry, as a government is to provide them with the necessary tools in for them to be able to overcome these challenges. That is why CARDI is so important for us, because they need to be bale to transfer those simple technologies to make our farmers better.?
Patrick Jones, for News Five.
CARDI?s relocation to Central Farm is part of government?s implementation of an integrated research system which the organization has been asked to spearhead. As to the former CARDI site at the corner of the Hummingbird Highway and Forest Drive, officials in the Ministry of Agriculture tell News 5 that it will be used for the headquarters of the Small Farmers and Business Bank.
