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Ministry of Agriculture projects farmers can grow enough good-quality carrots to satisfy local demand

Posted: Thursday, October 28, 2021. 5:55 pm CST.

By Rubén Morales Iglesias: The Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security, and Enterprise (MAFSE) says there are enough good quality carrots being produced by the Belizean farmers and that import permits will not be given out as long as there is local produce.

This comes after vendors at the Michael Finnegan Market in Belize City last week complained that the Government’s refusal to allow import licenses for carrots coupled with the poor quality of the local produce was hurting their pockets.

“The policy of the Government is always to support local produce, so as long as there is local production of any of our products, whether it be carrots, whether it’d be potato, whether it’d be onions, whether it’d be celery, anything, we will not allow importation to come in. As simple as that,” said Servulo Baeza, MAFSE CEO.

Carrot farmers and MAFSE blame middlemen for high prices and the poor condition of carrots.

Barry Palacio, Orange Walk Head Extension Officer, said on Wednesday at the New River Farmers Cooperative Society farms in San Carlos where MAFSE showed the media what the carrot harvest looks like and the quality of the local produce, that the middlemen take advantage and hike the price and that the products are not always stored properly.

“Some people want to take advantage of it and they have no regard for grading and they sell the general public items that are sub-standard,” Palacio said.

“People were trying to make a quick buck and they fail to practice these safe practices and that in itself contributes to that age-old perception that the local produce is not good, and we are seeing from our farmers that they are trying their utmost to present and market a fairly decent product,” Palacio said.

Maximiliano Hernandez, San Carlos Village Chairman and secretary of the New River Farmers Cooperative Society says that we should have enough good carrots. He also said that when the middlemen buy from them, the middlemen say the product is good. So, he questions why the same product will not be good once it gets to the market.

“Why when you go to the market you have complaints? Maybe it depends on the storage, the management, the road, they put it in the truck bad, everything, that’s why the farmer will not solve all problems. We have a big chain, the producers, the buyers, the distributors, we have problems with that,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez said the farmers, trying their best to produce enough to meet the demands of the local market, started planting in July, when before they would not do so until September. However, that brings its challenges, he says, because the weather is too hot in July.

He said that the farmers are experimenting in their farms and that they need the help of MAFSE.

“The consumer wants a carrot that has good flavour,” Hernandez said in May when Breaking Belize News visited the New River Farmers Cooperative Society in San Carlos. At the time he said that “to produce you have to invest,” and that the farmers were using their own resources and loans to do so.

He said that they were testing several varieties of carrots to see which ones were better suited for San Carlos but warned that farmers in different parts of the country had to do likewise because the soil and climate are different elsewhere.

Last year, the New River Farmers Cooperative Society alone produced 200,000 pounds of carrots. This time around, with harvest also getting underway in other parts of the country like Corozal, Cayo, and Stann Creek, Palacio expects there should be more than enough produce to serve the Belize market.

“The projection for carrot production is within the range of almost 3 million pounds of carrots. Historically Belize only produces 1.2, 1.3 million pounds of carrots,” Palacio said.

As was the case with tomatoes earlier, Palacio believes that the farmers will have to find a way to better market their product and will have to find other markets. Exports might be the solution.

Just recently, Agriculture Minister Jose Abelardo Mai was in El Salvador and said that carrots could be one of the products Belize might be able to export to El Salvador.

Meanwhile, Baeza insists that MAFSE has got the farmers back.

Baeza said MAFSE will continue working with the farmers. He said MAFSE supports the farmers experimenting to find the best varieties and that they will be providing covered structures for what is considered out of season planting, like the New River Farmers planting in July.

“It’s the first time we are harvesting carrots so early,” said Baeza emphasizing that the government policy of import substitution requires that Belize has enough local produce.

“If we can extend the period of time that we have local production that means we can import less so the challenge to them has been, let’s try to produce more even if it is what we call out of season.”

“We need to try to find the varieties because there are new varieties being tested and being put out in the market that can last longer and can tolerate more heat,” said Baeza explaining that the Central Farm Research, Development, and Innovation Department will have to lead the way in identifying which varieties grow better in the “out of season” so that we can have year-round production.

 

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