A Coconut Industry in the North

Jose Abelardo Mai

The Ministry of Agriculture is launching an initiative in terms of starting a coconut industry in northern Belize. Minister Jose Abelardo Mai says that the goal is to diversify the agriculture industry in the north and that the coconut seeds have already been acquired.

Jose Abelardo Mai, Ministry of Agriculture

“We are trying to diversify the agriculture base in the north and we have begun with sitting in five thousand seeds of the Brazilian dwarf coconut. We are doing it between the Ministry of Agriculture, Central Farm and SIRDI. These seeds were donated to us by a company in Orange Walk, Mister Sergio Marroquin, and these we have already placed those in nurseries and we hope to have those out in five months to farmers. And we are also hoping to buy more from him so that we can start off the production of coconut, large scale. We are looking at large scale production in the very near future. But we are concerned about the small farmers. How can we make available the seed to the farmers and that we can make it available at an affordable price. And that is what the ministry is concerned about. So in the next few months, it will be very interesting, you will see the coconut industry growing.”