Will Belize be exporting livestock to neighboring Mexico?

In September Prime Minister Dean Barrow told the nation in his Independence Day speech, that Belize’s thriving livestock industry would begin exporting cattle to neighboring Mexico by the end of this year.  That was good and welcomed news for the industry. But where’s the beef? According to cattle farmers, that deadline will not be met; in fact it will take many months for the first hooves to cross the border. The setback, we are told, is due to legislative work to bring the industry up to par with both local and international standards. According to John Carr, president of the Belize Livestock Association, the government along with its counterparts have enacted stringent measures to ensure animal health and safety across the board.

John Carr, President, Belize Livestock Association (via phone)

“Mostly what we are talking about is sanitary inspections that include brucellosis and tuberculosis inspections as well as traceability which means putting an ear tag on every animal in Belize.  It’s a very complex program as far as traceability because we have to kind of catch every animal.  But we have funding, about two point two million US [dollars] and we hope to be able to start sometime in March or April.  There’s a lot of legislation that goes with this but we think we’re on the downhill slope.”

Isani Cayetano

“Can you speak to us a bit about what some of these legislations entail?”

John Carr (via phone)

“Well the legislation mostly are processes of sanitation.  Most of them are very, it’s just what happens if you get a cow that’s suspect and at what point does it really have the disease, traceability which just means that we have to get a permit to move cattle from district to district and so on and so forth.  So we always know [that] each cow will have like a passport as they live and die and are born they will have a passport.”

Isani Cayetano

“Finally Mr. Carr in terms of a quantity to be exported has that been determined as yet?”

John Carr (via phone)

“Well of course the market forces are what makes all this thing come together.  Government can put together the framework and the legislation and take care of the sanitary health situation but in the end the markets are the determining factor.  Right now we are being crucified by the markets, you know, sometimes we have low trading going on but we don’t talk about it too much but our prices are very low and we’re very anxious to see this happen.  Annually we expect to ship about twenty thousand cattle a year and at a thousand dollars each that’s twenty million dollars that cattle will add to foreign trade.”

So for now our Mexican friends will have to wait much more for the taste of Belize beef.