Farmers Raise Concerns About Vegetable Crops

Edgar Fuentes

The role of the Belize Marketing and Development Corporation is to assist farmers with promoting and selling their produce.  Participating in this dialogue allows BMDC to understand what quantities of local produce are on the market, so as to prevent the importation of those vegetables.  Edgar Fuentes has been a farmer for the last twenty-five years.  He says that the challenge they are faced with this year is that there has not been sufficient rainfall for the potato crop out in the field.

Edgar Fuentes, Farmer, La Gracia Village

“The challenge that we are having right now is that right now we don‘t have too much rain, so I think we are going to have some problems in the production.  There‘s not going to be a lot of production this year.  The other thing is that the inputs that we use, like fertilizers and chemicals and so, they are very expensive.  Like fertilizers, today it was one hundred and fifty for a bag and for us it‘s a really, really high price because last year it was for seventy-five to eighty dollars.  So almost half of the price has been up, so I think we are going to discuss that today.”

Valentin Carillo

Valentin Carillo, Administrator, BMDC

“BMDC helps out the farmers when they are coming, that transition phase between importation and local production coming into play.  So when we have this information the transition happens easier and for the benefit of both the ministry, the farmer and BMDC.  So we don’t have that clash with farmers having their produce in the market and then we’re bringing in imported goods.  So this is very essential, this meeting is very important to share information and data so that we can plan ahead of time.  That is the purpose of this meeting, for data sharing and for everyone to share their opinions and concerns.”