Shrimp Industry Fights On

Two weeks ago, we reported that the Belize Aquaculture Limited terminated one hundred employees. The shrimp farm in the south reported that it was experiencing tough financial times because a disease was wreaking havoc in the shrimp stocks. Again, this is an industry that was once a top revenue earner for Belize but in recent times that revenue has plummeted. Minister of Agriculture Godwin Hulse says that the despite the downturn in the shrimp industry, it is not dead.

Godwin Hulse

Godwin Hulse, Minister of Agriculture

“Yes, aquaculture is going through some difficult times but if you take a visit down there and I invited you to, you will see that they are doing various, serious moves with respect to the technology. Alvin has his own technology which is smaller pans bottom drain.  Some other farms are using rice bran in a certain process. Mike Duncker has some tubes at the bottom where it is re-circulating. All sorts of things are being done to try to get on top of this. The bottom line is, everybody see some progress so far. It is not as magnificent as we would want. We have held joint meetings. I called a joint meeting with the Central Bank, Social Security, DFC, Atlantic Bank, Heritage Bank, all the players in the industry – BAHA, everybody – a whole day conference to discuss this matter and where we are going. So, I am fairly optimistic that we will come back; gradually but certainly we will recover. I don’t think shrimp, at all, is dead.”