Farmers of the year ready for Ag Show
This weekend thousands of Belizeans will flock to Belmopan for the annual National Agriculture and Trade Show. And if anyone can vouch for whether farming conforms to this year’s theme of making you healthy, wealthy, and wise, it would be the Farmers of the Year. The 2007 awardees hail from the Belize, Corozal, and Stann Creek districts.
Kendra Griffith, Reporting
The Farmer of the Year award went to thirty-one year old Wilbert Ramclam of Red Bank Village.
Wilbert Ramclam, Farmer of the Year
“It’s quite a proud accomplishment. It is something that I always wanted to accomplish. I think I am following a trend in terms of being a former student of the Belize College of Agriculture—one and only—and to be the Farmer of the Year, I take this as one of my greatest accomplishments ever.”
“I have citrus, lemons, quite a variety of all the lemons, cashew, mangoes, avocado, tambran and we also have plantains, pineapple, peppers as well, coconuts, quite a bit of coconuts, four acres of coconuts, and we also have some kinep, passion fruit.”
Ramclam’s other accomplishments include a Bachelor’s degree in biology from U.B. and a Masters in Plant Nutrition from the London Polytechnic Institute.
Wilbert Ramclam
“From the onset I used have chickens in my backyard, I used to have pigs and I was always one of the person involving in agriculture at Independence High, so it’s my passion from a young boy.”
Eighteen year old Chunox resident Araceli Awaya has the distinction of being 2007’s Junior Farmer of the Year.
Araceli Awaya, Junior Farmer of the Year (Translated)
“I feel proud for being the winner this year.”
On her family operated twenty-acre farm, Awaya grows watermelons, corn, tomatoes, pepper, cilantro, and cucumbers. She also has a thriving business making plantain chips.
Araceli Awaya
“We have one thousand bags of plantain chips to deliver. We have for Sarteneja, Chunox, Little Belize, San Estevan, Orange Walk, Progresso and Copper Bank to deliver the plantain chips.”
The teen intends to sit an exam to be a certified pesticide applicator.
Elnelda Scott, Female Farmer of the Year
“I’ve been in farming roughly about thirty years right now.”
Sixty year old Elnelda Scott is this year’s Female Farmer of the Year.
Elnelda Scott
“I feel very excited and proud to be here and happy, very happy.”
The Maskall resident has been selling produce from her twenty-acre farm at the Queen Square Market for over twenty years. In addition to vegetables and livestock, Scott’s farm also boasts a semi-mechanised coconut oil processor.
Elnelda Scott
“That’s mostly the bread basket for me right now. I mostly would get up after dealing with the dog and creatures I would start chipping coconuts. If I buy them in the husk, my common law husband, Mr. Jones would husk them for me and then I would start chipping. After chipping we take them to Maskall where we grate them, then come back home we leave it overnight and in the next morning we’ll take off the oil, and then we cook that.”
And while farming might not be the career of choice for many Belizeans, Scott says it’s just the thing for her.
Elnelda Scott
“If they really love the bushes, if they don’t love it, I would tell young people to stay away because it’s a backbreaking, some say thankless [job], but if you love it, it is a wonderful way of life.”
The Agriculture and Trade Show kicks off with an opening ceremony Friday afternoon and runs through Sunday.
