Onion Farmers Facing Losses Due to Contraband
The contraband produce trade is big business in Belize. But this illicit activity is also taking money out of the pockets of local farmers. Onion farmers, for example, can only cultivate for a certain period of time because that is when climate conditions allow for healthy crops. And so they plant and sell during that productive window, then the Government of Belize resorts to imports to meet demands and supply the local market. Tonight, News Five returns to some farmers who grow eighty percent of the onions for the Belize District, but who are now threatened with losses due to contraband.
Andrea Polanco, Reporting
The Bomba United Farmers are hard at work bagging onions. They are a farming family, the largest onion producer in the Belize District. On average these men plant eighteen acres of onions every season because they supply twenty-percent of the onions for the entire country.
Reynaldo Orellana
Reynaldo Orellana, Onion Farmer, Bomba United Farmers
“We normally harvest about eight thousand sacks of onions, more or less. And we supply from April, May, June, July and August. That is the season we have onions.”
Although Belizeans consume lots of onions every day – being in the onion business is risky because the local market is hot bed for contraband produce, with onions at the top of the list. All these bags under this shed, for instance, are produce that the farmers are struggling to sell because illegal onions are flooding the market.
Reynaldo Orellana
“The problem is that because in the market there is a lot of contraband. Right now, more or less, we should be taking approximately six hundred sacks of onions in the week to the market, but mostly now we only have about three hundred orders because the rest the contraband is taking the market of the rest. There is a lot of contraband. We have received information that there is about three hundred sacks of onions in.”
Andrea Polanco
“Floating the marketing right now?”
Reynaldo Orellana
“Yes from contraband.”
Andrea Polanco
“So, this essentially means that you as a wholesaler your customers are not buying because they can’t retail it?”
Reynaldo Orellana
“Yes that’s the situation, yes. There are vehicles coming with one hundred and fifty sacks and in a week time they bring two trips and that is about three hundred sacks in the market – so that is about three hundred less that we do sell and that is a problem for us.”
These farmers have one hundred and forty-thousand pounds of onions stored. These are produce that the farmers must sell off in three weeks time. That’s because their season should be wrapping up and it is time to import onions to supply the market. But right now, these farmers are worried that they will suffer massive losses this season
Reynaldo Orellana
“And the thing is that we have limited time to sell because we are informed that in a month’s time the Marketing Board is bringing from Hollanda. I think if there wasn’t this situation this is a legal time – three weeks we would be able to sell everything – but because of this situation we can’t move these onion because of contraband.”
But this is not a new problem. The contraband trade is booming in Belize and those who stand to suffer most are these producers in rural communities who depend on farming to make a living. Reynaldo Orellano is appealing to authorities to tackle this illicit trade.
Reynaldo Orellana
“What we would like to ask is maybe the police can have more checkpoints for certain hours in the night because mostly these contraband come in the night and maybe custom officers can work with them. And next thing I would want to see is that Customs and BAHA can visit the market mostly on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday and Friday are the days mostly being affected with contraband. It is a great challenge because there is great investment that we have to do for the other season, the onion season. And yes, we are talking about a lot of money.”
For just about most of us, we don’t think about the months of hard work and financial investment that these farmers make to produce locally grown vegetables that are a staple in our diet, like the onions in your ceviche or escabeche. But for these farmers, their produce supports their families. When you buy local, it helps them to keep planting.
Reynaldo Orellana
“After you clean the area you have to take out every stone from the area by hand; after that we pass a plower and then we make the beds and the stones that come out we have to take them out; then we have the process of the seeds; fertilization; irrigation and the pesticides that is another thing that is letting us feel it a bit harder because those prices for fertilizers are going up.”
Andrea Polanco
“It is a lot of hard work and expensive to produce these onions?”
Reynaldo Orellana
“Hard work and expensive yes. We can say that it is the most expensive production that we have. Yes this is everything for us.”
Andrea Polanco
“And when you see these contraband on the market, I could imagine it hurts?”
Reynaldo Orellana
“Yes because this is what we depend on.”
Reporting for News Five, I’m Andrea Polanco.
The Bomba United Group will be at the Michael Finnegan Market selling wholesale on Monday. You can get in touch with them at 637-5526.
