Value of Agricultural Damages Caused By Flooding Event to be Determined

Orlando Habet

The Ministry of Agriculture has already sent out personnel to assess the agricultural damages associated with this weekend’s flooding. According to Minister Orlando Habet, flood waters will have to recede before the Government of Belize can calculate the value of the damages. But, what he did inform us is that losses are significant.

Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management

“A lot of the production for agriculture food items in the Spanish Lookout Cayo area was affected, especially soy beans, black beans and corn. Some of these were already proceeds for harvesting had already commenced so when the rains came and flooding increased, some of these went under water, some of them are still under water. So, maybe there will be a percentage that are still be able to be harvested, however spoilage commence very quickly because they are soaked up with water. They have to be put through a drying process which is also expensive. But also, the cost for harvesting increasing because the machinery, the combine which does the harvesting for corn and beans will not be able to pick them up off the ground. So, if they want to get that product off the ground it will be manual which will be very expensive and inefficient. Many times the water soaks into the seeds and they start germinating even before we harvest them. There will be significant loses, but we will be able to do an estimate after the water recedes.”