Vegetable Co-op Appeals to G.O.B. for Help!
Tonight, we bring you the story of a farming community that is reeling from the impacts of the flooding in rural Belize. Last Friday, we gave you a snippet of how a vegetable cooperative located behind Maskall Village is trying to pick up the pieces in wake of the flooding that followed the passage of Hurricane Eta. The co-op is one of the largest tomato producers in Belize and is reporting losses of up to eighty percent of crops. Tonight, they are appealing to government to help them get access to their farms because the water has worsened the road conditions to the point where some farmers are unable to get to their land. Reporter Andrea Polanco visited the cooperative to help share their story. Here’s the report.
Andrea Polanco, Reporting
From a distance, this plot of tomatoes looks bright and flourishing – but a closer look inside the rows shows underdeveloped fruits hanging low and most of the trees are dried up and dying. Almost two weeks ago, flood water covered this plot of land and damaged these crops. Farmers say about eighty percent of their crops have been destroyed and what’s left behind is not the best quality. It’s a huge blow to the cooperative being one of the largest tomato and sweet pepper producers in the country – and more than half of the members lost all their crops in the floods. Secretary of the Cooperative Omar Gonzalez says the farmers are feeling hopeless.
Omar Gonzalez
Omar Gonzalez, Secretary, Los PequenosAgricultores Y Ganadores de Nago Bank [Translated]
“It damaged practically all the produce because of the crops we have in the cooperative; we can say that as much as eighty percent of the crops were destroyed and we remained with a minimum of only about twenty percent that’s good.”
Andrea Polanco
“Describe to me how the famers are feeling right now?”
Omar Gonzalez
“Right now there are twenty two of us and twelve of our members are extremely worried because they had one hundred percent losses. And with a hundred percent loss, it is hard because everything you have invested you have lost and there is no hope to recuperate that investment.”
These farmers are members of a vegetable cooperative in a small farming community called Nago Bank. There are twenty-two families with about twenty-five acres under cultivation since 2010. In 2013, they became a cooperativewhere they farma number of vegetables and herbs to supply markets around the country. During regular harvesting, each farmer can reap up to a thousand pounds each of their main crops, tomato and sweet pepper. But that’s not going to happen this season. The cooperative says it means bad business for growers and consumers.
Omar Gonzalez [Translated]
“When the rains came and damaged our crops, it created a very difficult situation for us because we make our living off of the produce that we sell. But now that we’ve lost just about everything, the income we are able to make is small. The economic situation for us is bad and similarly for our customers in the markets. We use to provide a hundred percent of the produce and now we will only be able to supply twenty to twenty-five percent. The quality of the product as well – we are used to providing a high quality produce to our customers. But nevertheless, the little that we are able to salvage from our crops, we are trying to reserve it for our clients and our people in the markets who are waiting for it.”
Andrea Polanco
“Would those products be more expensive in the market?”
Omar Gonzalez [Translated]
“Of course, they would be more expensive.”
But even with twenty percent of their crops ready for harvest, the farmersare struggling to get their produce out to supply the markets. They can’t access their fields because the flood has worsened the already poor condition of the farm roads. Gonzalez says that they must fork up fifteen thousand dollars in order for them to get only the main road repaired.
Omar Gonzalez [Translated]
“The access roads were damaged by up to eighty percent. And we even have parts of the access road where we have water from two to five feet high. We even have losses in our vehicles too because we have four by four vehicles which come in to our fields where we have the vegetables but the water and all that come and destroy the vehicles too. So, we have had a lot of problems because of that. We are now trying to see how we repair the access roads and we have talked to a Mennonite friend in the area and he has promised to help us repair the road for fifteen thousand dollars. This will be just for widening the road and repair the parts of the road that are badly damaged. The biggest help he will give us is that we can pay him in installments because we are cooperative and with this situation we don’t have a lot of money right now.”
So, where do these farmers turn? According to Gonzalez, they have been in communication with the Ministry of Agriculture since the flooding – but help takes some time to trickle down to them. For now, they are intent on trying to restart planting for harvest in another three months or so. He appeals to government to assist them with the farm roads to access their lands so that they can supply the country with produce:
Omar Gonzalez [Translated]
“It would take approximately three months for the people to get our produce they way they normally do, and good produce, because it so happens that we will start anew. We have to pick up ourselves from where we are; re-sow; reinvest to sow to take care of the plants. I think it might take three months to three and a half months to get the kind of products the consumers need in the market. If we could get some help from our government to repair our access road because right now we are just repairing the main road but we also have other smaller access roads right up to our farms that are difficult to traverse. And for us to reach all the way there you can’t use a vehicle, we have to get a tractor and not even a tractor we have right now to get to the place.”
Reporting for News Five, I’m Andrea Polanco.
