As we showed you in the Belize River Valley, all around the country, the different communities have been experiencing the serious effects of the flooding caused by the relentless rains of the recent months. The Government of Belize has been studying the situation, and they've been working on the best possible response to help those affected.
Today, the Deputy Prime Minister, who is also the Minister of Agriculture, told the media about the meetings that he has been having with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Works. According to Vega, while agriculture is a major area of concern, the priority right now is fixing the roads so that the villages aren't cut off from the main towns:
Hon. Gaspar Vega, Deputy Prime Minister
"At this moment I know Prime Minister and I and the Minister of Works sat down on Wednesday to talk about the roads because we believe that is priority even though the crops is as important. The roads, we have villages that cannot commute from one village to the main town because bridges have been washed away and stuff like that. We have to prioritize our needs. I think the Prime Minister ask the Ministry of Works to do a complete assessment because, we, crying about San Antonio, San Luis bit other areas on the entire country are as badly affected."
"We have to watch what we can fix right away. As we speak San Antonio has more than 2 feet of water on the highway. San Luis has the same problem; water is already swelling from the river into the Douglas Village - something that we just suffered a couple months ago. As you know we had to take groceries to those 4 villages and we can't complain - that's Mother Nature. We are hoping and praying that it stops raining and like today, we are not only praying for the sun but even for a little cold front because we know that the sun alone is going to take extremely long to dry this water in our villages because the areas in Orange Walk is not like Cayo where we have flash floods and in 24 hours later everything is dry. Right here it takes 12 weeks."
It is not only the livestock farmers who are losing their investment. International Media reports say that Brooks Tropical, Belize's largest papaya exporter - based in northern Belize, experienced losses due to flooded fields in August and September. As a result, the company is generating 50% of their normal export volume, and the company does not see any improvement any time soon because of the current floods.
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