Blue Creek Cattle Producers are Taking a Serious Lick

The situation in agriculture, particularly for livestock producers, is dire as thousands of heads of cattle are grazing in pastures that are quickly drying up amid the drought.  The Ministry of Agriculture is working feverishly to address the frustrations of the agro-productive sector regarding a freeze in the informal trade of cattle with neighboring Guatemala.  To make matters all the more difficult, News Five understands that Chief Executive Officer Jose Alpuche has tendered his resignation with three months notice. His resignation comes on the heels of government’s decision to close down all informal trade in livestock between Belize and Guatemala via Bullet Tree Falls and Jalacte.  The result is that over eighty percent of a hundred and seventy thousand heads of cattle that were destined for the foreign market will now remain in country and Belizeans, on average, do not consume that much beef.  So what does this glut mean for farmer?  News Five spoke with Steward Dyck, the Chairman of the Blue Creek Cattle Committee, who says that they are incurring expenses that were not budgeted for.

Steward Dyck

Steward Dyck, Chairman, Blue Creek Cattle Committee

“Cattle is a little bit different from chicken and pork because the cattle they do keep growing.  The chicken and pork, they can only grow so and so big.  Cattle is similar but if we have sufficient pasture it wouldn’t be as big of a problem.  Let’s say this was happening in a regular year in August or September when they are in the height of rainy season, it wouldn’t matter because we would have sufficient grass.  We have already this year had to purchase four hundred and fifty big, round bales that are between eight hundred and a thousand pounds.  We’ve spent thirty-six thousand dollars just on our farm, just in bales and this is only considering one farm.  There is one farmer I talked to three days ago who said that for him to get through the drought he would need to purchase about eight hundred big, round bales that are between eight hundred to a thousand pounds, just to get his cows through if we had another drought the way we did last year. With eighty percent of our cattle being produced here having to go out, we have to find another option, we have to keep lobbying for some help some way, whether it is Guatemala, whether it is formally or whether it is Mexico.  But with all the country being on lockdown, all the vets being in isolation and BAHA hardly working right now it’s going to be very difficult to follow the procedures that they have in place.  To export formally to Guatemala and Mexico there’s a list of thirty points that you have to follow, things that have to be vaccinated, twenty-one days of quarantine in a pen all alone and they have to be checked on by BAHA vet every week and all of these things.  Some of the vaccines that are required for us to export cattle to Mexico, they’re not even available in Belize.”