African Palm Oil: Another Potential Agro Industry for Belize

And while the government and the Ministry of Agriculture contemplate diversifying, one other area they are thinking to venture into is the production of African palm oil, particularly in southern Belize, which has seen farmers enter into coconut bi-products and grains.

Jose Abelardo Mai

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture

“I believe that one other options is African palm oil. Although the environmentalists have a little concern about it because in other countries when they planted African palm oil, they had to clear a lot of land. In this case, it’s not that, because the lands are very clear for citrus. It’s just replacing the dead orchards with another product. And so for the investment summit, the Guatemalans were here, they have interests to plant African palm oil. I was there over the weekend for the Livestock Expo and again, I met the people and they’re asking us: “Are you serious? Do you want us to invest in Belize in African palm oil?” We had excellent representation from the Guatemalans for the Expo – sorry, for the investment summit. It attracted a lot of attention, but we need to push it more, if that’s the way we’re going to go. We’re just waiting for the results of that task force, and then we have to decide what do we do.”