World Food Day 2006 fair held in Dangriga

Today our roving reporter Jacqueline Godwin and her trusty cameraman Chris Mangar headed south to participate in the annual activities marking World Food Day. But as they discovered, a lack of proper nutrition, especially among the country’s poorest citizens, remains a significant challenge.

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Today farmers, producers and processors from across Belize gathered in Dangriga to celebrate World Food Day 2006. The forty booths on display showcased the variety of foods available in the country. The event was hosted by the Stann Creek District Committee. According to the group, only agriculture can bring down the curtain on hunger in the world and in Belize.

Jacqueline Godwin
?In Belize there is enough food to feed the entire nation, but in reality not everyone?in fact a large number of Belizeans do not have access to this vital resource. One reason is that over thirty percent of our people are living in poverty. The Ministry of Agriculture hopes to address this critical issue by attacking the factors they say are contributing to this problem.?

Francine Magloire, National Correspondent, F.A.O.
?If you are hungry that means that you cannot be productive and you cannot develop. The country is at an immediate disadvantage.?

The Food and Agriculture Organization?s National Correspondent Francine Magloire says the 2002 statistical report reveals that forty four percent of Belize?s rural areas are at the poverty line. However more recent studies suggest that there may be an even bigger problem in Belize City.

Francine Magloire
?Belize City itself is where you have pockets of extreme poverty, so where as the national statistics suggest that there is more poverty, and you would say hunger along with poverty in rural areas. I think that we have to focus on our cities and in particular Belize City, because these are the people who don?t have access to land and farming to produce their basic need which is food.?

Magloire says Belize is self sufficient in vegetables and many staple foods like rice, beans and corn so there is no reason for people to go hungry in Belize.

Francine Magloire
?But it is a sad reality that we actually have children going to school without food in a country that has enough food.?

So what is the problem?

Francine Magloire
?We are not faced with drought situations, we don?t have a natural disaster very often, we have the occasional flood, but the factors that we need to influence are things that we can, which is our policies. Cost of credit, cost of inputs and cost of utilities, so if we develop the rural sector and bring down the cost of production for agriculture all of Belize will profit.?

The Ministry of Agriculture and fisheries is about to launch a campaign that will provide primary schools students with packages of dehydrated fruits and milk.

Jacqueline Godwin for News Five.

World Food Day was celebrated under the theme: Invest in Agriculture for Food Security.