Belizean potato farmers are in crisis mode because their product is rotting in the fields. It's due to Mexican imported potatoes which are still on the market when the Belize crop came ready for harvest. Now, this is the balancing act that the Ministry of Agriculture has to do every year with key vegetable crops which are grown locally, but not in sufficient quantities for year round supply. So, that's when those white potatoes are imported, but when the local red potatoes hit the market, the Ministry of Agriculture has to make sure that there's no white potatoes there to compete with them. And that's because given the choice, most consumers would prefer the larger, cheaper imported white and brown potatoes. Many of those farmers are in the San Carlos area of Orange Walk South - and the area representative who is also an agronomist, says that the farmers are in distress and government has to do something to make sure they don't suffer a total loss of crop.
Hon. Abelardo Jose Mai, PUP OW South Area Representative
"Every day that passes, every hour that passes farmers are losing their potatoes. So I don't know what is taking so long to come to reach an agreement - meanwhile, the famers desperately have to sell. So they are selling at whatever substandard prices they can afford and you selling left, right and center. So who will end up suffering? The farmers, selling at a very low price and I think it's unfair."
Reporter
"There is no way that .75cents per pound of the product is beneficial to the farmers?"
Hon. Abelardo Jose Mai
"Absolutely not. The instant that that price was proposed, it should have been rejected by the ministry, because they know it doesn't cost .75cents to grow a pound of potato and what the minister says is that they we have 15,000 pounds and that supposed to be more efficient. He is so ridiculous. The imported potatoes are being sold at .75cents imported. So how will the farmers' local production be sold at .75cents a pound when we know that everything we produced in this country is far more expensive than any other country in the world (put it that way)."
Reporter
"We have heard Minister of Agriculture Godwin Hulse, talking about the issue, specifically discussing the probability of implementing a post-harvest program."
Hon. Abelardo Jose Mai
"The best way to store potatoes are in a cold storage. But there is tremendous cost to that. Warehousing is very expensive in Belize, especially cold storage. So he wants these people to store potatoes in cold storage? It will cost a lot of money. I don't think it's practical, I don't think it's feasible. I think that at this point there is only one thing that we can do to reduce spoilage in potatoes. It will not eliminate it completely, but it will reduce the losses to farmers and that is if we can warehouse or withhold the potato fries. If we can control or get the cooperation of the French fry importers, and we can say to them to kindly hold your product for 1 month initially, so that it gives time for the local potato to be absorbed by the market. So our potato will be converted into fries and it's a good potato fries. I think that that will help the situation a lot."
Email
Print