In December of last year, the Ministry of Agriculture along with Restore Belize launched and initiative called the Urban Agriculture project. It provided residents of the southside with seeds and technical assistance to grow short term vegetables, condiments and herbs on their own property. Today the first 40 beneficiaries of the program received certificates for completing the first productive phase. 7news was there.
Ina Sanchez - Coordinator, Urban Agric. Program
"Today's ceremony was to show our appreciation to the first beneficiaries to the Urban Agriculture Program, who completed the first productive phase of the program. Each phase was approximately 4 months, so we had two sets of beneficiaries, because they started on different dates. So, because the productive phase a vegetable would be approximately 4 months, after this is when we call it the end of the first phase. It was very productive. We had different amounts of production. There were many products: a lot of tomatoes, sweet peppers. We had a lot of celanthros. habanero peppers - that we couldn't even measure the amount of celanthros and habanero peppers. And also we had many obstacles - the weather being the main one. Many of these people were limited because you know that water is vital resource. So the lack of rains didn't help us at all. Well pests - we can't complain about pests because we didn't have any damages by pests. And over all, it was a very productive cycle, in terms of production and in terms of participation of the beneficiaries. The initial group was 40 participants. We had at least 10 who weren't here, but the total participants were 40, who completed the first productive phase of the Urban Agriculture Program. Right now, we have 18 more beneficiaries who weren't given certificates because they haven't finished their productive cycle. They're - at the moment - the plants are starting to flower, and almost producing fruits."
A new list of 40 beneficiaries will be contacted to start phase 2 of the 4 month program.
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