7 News Belize

BELIZEAN SOY SAUCE LAUNCHED
posted (June 17, 2011)
One of the main objectives of Taiwan's technical mission established under "The Agricultural Technology Cooperation Agreement" signed back in 1990, is the development of food products that have market potential. Since that agreement Taiwan has assisted Belizean farmers in Rice seed and Vegetable production, training in Aquaculture technology and papaya exportation. More recently the Taiwanese have been lending their expertise in the production of one of their signature condiment, Soy sauce! And the main players being trained in its development and production here in Belize, SINCE LAST YEAR, are a group of dedicated women from the north. Today, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Cooperative in collaboration with the Technical Mission of the Republic of China Taiwan launched its Belizean Soy Sauce project in the Orange Walk district.

Charles Bacab, Coordinator Agro Processing
"The soy sauce project is a project which was design to reduce importation and also to add value to agriculture products. Therefore it is targeting a number of women who will benefit by increasing their household income."

Hon. Rene Montero
"This project will create also a market for those farmers who are producing soy beans because they will be selling the soy beans to the women groups and the women will be converting it into a soy sauce. Today we start on a small scale but in the next year or so we expect that it will grow up 5 fold because the market for soy sauce and the quality of the soy sauce as you can see it is of good quality."

Charles Bacab, Coordinator Agro Processing
"I think that we are on the right track with these women that we are working with because they are very active and very dedicated and I would like to encourage them to do this. If we continue like this in 4 year's time we are going to meet our target which is to reduce importation of soy bean sauce at least by 50%. That means they we are going to cover about 250,000 pounds of soy beans. Addition to this it means that the farmers at the farm level will have more money because they will sell their soy bean. We are going to used more than 150,000 pounds of soy bean - that is equivalent to 120 acres of soy bean."

Hon. Rene Montero
"I just want to tell the women that I give them thanks for their courage to really face this challenge and also tell them that they are not alone and that we will continue to work along with them to give them all the resources that they need in terms of technical advice in capacity building and any other resource that they may need. We believe in projects like these because these projects especially when it involves women it will really create another venue for creating employment and generating some income so that the women and their families can improve their standard of living."

Those who attended the official launching today, were treated to Lunch with the new Belizean Soy Sauce called WOW!. The four year project is estimated to cost almost a quarter million Belize dollars.

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