We've spoken plenty about the citrus industry recently - mostly about the government funded bailout. But very little of that talk has been about the citrus greening disease which threatens to decimate Belize's citrus industry.
There are ways around greening, but once a tree is affected, it is incurable. Just last month, the New York Times quoted a senator as saying that Florida's citrus crop is quote, "totally threatened….If we don't find a cure, it will eliminate the citrus industry."
That's how serious it is, and "concerted efforts by growers and millions of dollars spent on research to fight the disease have so far failed."
University of Florida agricultural analysts concluded that between 2006 and 2012, citrus greening cost Florida's economy $4.5 billion dollars and 8,000 jobs.
All that from a disease spread by an insect smaller than the head of a pin. The insect snacks on citrus trees, depositing bacteria that gradually starves the trees of nutrients.
But, one Belizean says he has a solution. Self-styled economist and machinist Bill Lindo is now an agronomist, it appears. He sent out a release on Wednesday saying that he's developed what he calls a propriety formula based on quote, "A keen understanding of God's Nature which is non-linear, holistic, ordered, (and) intelligent.
Sounded like a lot of hot air to us, and so Jules Vasquez grilled Bill about this formula, which he says is all about soil:...
Jules Vasquez
"Tell us what this propriety formula is about?"
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"It is a home-made chemical made in Belize using products that spray on the tree along with other things done in the soil. The problem with the greening is not the insect. The problem is a soil borne problem that cause by other problems making trees very weak and very sick. Greening and all these disease basically is a problem of health, it is a problem of immunity, it is the soil."
"The citrus problem has a big problem. For the past 3 years I've been fighting all of the established people stop using potassium chloride, why? Chloride does not work. Citrus trees are very sensitive but it's cheap. It cost 30% cheaper than the potassium sulphate."
Jules Vasquez
"So then you are saying that we are in the grips of a citrus greening outbreak because we are cheap?"
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"That is part of the problem, which is a big part of the problem. It's easy to solve."
Jules Vasquez
"The correct thing that you proposed is expensive because you have to buy the expensive fertilizer and you have to pay for the services of Lake I Development Company Ltd. - that's your company and I would imagine your services aren't cheap."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"No, I do testing cheap. I do it cheaper than anybody else - I do it for $100."
Jules Vasquez
"Sir, botanist all over the world; botanist in the richest countries, the most populous countries, China, the United States can't find a cure for citrus greening."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"In China they have, but the world doesn't know about it."
Jules Vasquez
"You can't keep any secrets in the world."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"They know what they are doing and it's all in Chinese. Now in Florida they have conquered it you know."
Jules Vasquez
"I don't know that, I just come off the University of Florida website and they are calling it incurable."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"If you leave it to them you would be broke."
Jules Vasquez
"The University of Florida is the largest....."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"I know who they are and I read all their stuff, but I am telling you if you leave it to them, you'd be broke."
Jules Vasquez
"How can you be smarter or more intuitive than these huge companies in the United States who have a vested interest in solving this problem?"
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"No they don't."
Jules Vasquez
"I don't mean the companies selling the herbicides and all the "cides." I mean the companies who have huge investments in citrus - they are losing. How can they not figure it out if you can figure it out and you don't even have an orchard."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"I don't have to have an orchard to figure it out. I have a brain that God gave me."
Jules Vasquez
"They have an investment that they have to protect."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"You know what is the problem? The problem is the way you think, it is a mindset and they will never think and they will never solve anything because of their minds."
Jules Vasquez
"You are referring you release to schools. You are not a school man."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"No."
Jules Vasquez
"The last time you were a self-style economist."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"Economist/dredge/machine maker."
Jules Vasquez
"Now you are an agronomist/botanist/horticulturist...?"
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"Yes because I went to school where the school men teach and I learn the foolishness that they teach."
Jules Vasquez
"One is free to have philosophical luminations, but now you are dabbling in science. Bill you don't have a lab, Bill."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"I have a lab at home, I test soils."
Jules Vasquez
"You have a kit, you have a...."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"Yes, but I even come up and I make own "re-egence" because I can't get what I want, so I make what I want."
Jules Vasquez
"Are you the owner of a citrus orchard?"
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"No, I am planning to do one later this year though."
Jules Vasquez
"Physician heals thyself."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"No, I know what I am doing."
Jules Vasquez
"Now, you are independently wealthy and some would say..."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"No."
Jules Vasquez
"You are, in real estate holding alone, your assets have to value in the tens of millions."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"That doesn't have anything when you don't have cash."
Jules Vasquez
"Dr. Taegar always says the land is the bank."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"I will not argue with Dr. Taegar."
Jules Vasquez
"An observer would say this is cynical in the extreme. You have no skin in the game, you don't have a citrus orchard, these poor growers out there are fighting this disease and you come along.."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"They are fighting, they are not doing anything. You know what they are doing? They are abandoning the orchards."
Jules Vasquez
"So how can the farmer who is already beaten down by diminished yield and diminished earnings, how can he put his confidence in someone without a proven track record and who is not sure is a snake oil sales man or a scientist or an economist or what?"
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"And a dredge builder, building machines because I am doing that also and I am good at it. I do many things because God gave me a brain."
Jules Vasquez
"But I am not sure you do any of them well."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"They are doing well because the proof is in the eating."
Jules Vasquez
"But at the end of the day you are making a pitch for your product and for your consultancy, but how cynical would it be because these people have their entire lives invested..."
Bill Lindo, Lake I Development Ltd.
"And they are losing it. All it will cost them is $100 to get a soil test and spend $2.50 a box for fertilizer and that's all. You are spending more than that right now, so this is cheaper."
For its part the citrus growers association is conducting area - wide spraying campaigns to kill the insect that spreads the disease.
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