Every day that goes by without sale, the loss in earnings for local potato farmers - increases. As we have been reporting, the local potato farmers in the North and West are struggling to make ends meet. Thousands of potatoes are wasting away in the fields. This is all because the imported white potatoes are taking over the local market - most Belizeans buy the imported potatoes because they are cheaper and are seen as higher quality. But there is hope; today an Orange Walk farmer made a good sale at a city school. I dropped by St. Catherine's Academy to find out more about their pious potatoe initiative.
These SCA girls spent most of their morning weighing and bagging potatoes at school, but it wasn't for any cooking class.
Salome Tillett, Principal, SCA
"Earlier in the week we saw the news about the situation with our potato farmers and you know that struck a chord with me so in the morning I came, we did our morning devotion and I shared it with the students and I asked would they be willing to help and I was so blessed by their response, the students were overwhelmingly supportive of the idea."
"Our friends in Orange Walk were able to give us the contact of a person there and he was so happy to be able to sell his potatoes and his answer was sure right away."
Courtney Weatherburne, 7News
"So it is 2,000 pounds of potato you all bought?"
Salome Tillett, Principal, SCA
"Almost, its I think 1,800 and something."
And the almost 2,000 pounds of potatoes have all been sold to parents and students, so the bags were just distributed or picked up today.
Salome Tillett, Principal, SCA
"Some people ordered 2 pounds, some 10, some 6 pounds, some 7, so we are bagging it off according to how they request and so to suit parents and to suit students, because one class everybody in there ordered 2 pounds I think and in some classes, they said they want 8 pounds and one want 3 pounds."
Alanis Padillo, Student
"I was just excited because all these farmers have all these potatoes and we bought them from them and we helped them so they can grow other crops for us and it is natural, organic potatoes and it is much healthier than importing those white potatoes that we have."
And this Orange walk potato farmer Maximiliano Hernandez was certainly grateful for the help.
He says he has had 200,000 pounds of potatoes in storage for about 2 months now and what he is making from the cost per pound isn't cutting it at all. While Hernandez needs a lot more help, the SCA potato initiative is a good start.
Maximiliano Hernandez, Orange Walk Farmer
"The price right now is 75 cents a pound but that price maybe not good for us, because we don't make money, we don't make profit only the expenses, we invest money to produce more but we need to pay the loans, interest, that price is bad for the farmer."
"Really I feel good because Muffles Junior College and St. Catherine's College support us, the farmers and that is good for us and here encourage the consumers even the students support the farmers because small farmers in Belize are good for Belize because we maintain the dollars at home and more jobs for the people."
Salome Tillett, Principal, SCA
"Sometimes people need help, they need prayers but they need action too so it is good to say I will pray for you but it is also even better to say let me do something for you right now, something that will help you today."
So Hernandez got $1,600 from his sale to SCA. He has invested about $70,000 in his potato farms. Muffles Junior College in Orange Walk bought 1,500 pounds of potatoes from Hernandez's farm. Principal Tillett encourages all other secondary schools to join in the initiative.
Email
Print