And court is where we met Julius Espat, the PUP Area Rep. from Cayo South. He was there for another village matter and today he told us why he believes it is a "David vs. Goliath" battle:

Hon. Julius Espat - Area Rep. Cayo South
"I am fundamentally opposed by the comments made by government ministers and government representatives when it pertains to leaving it to court. You see for too long the impoverish people of Belize are not treated and fairly and I'll explain to you: You have a large conglomerate that have access to money, access to attorneys going to court against a farmer that doesn't understand the system - has no money to take an attorney to court and I believe that it is the representative responsibility - all of us, the 31 of us in the house to be there to protect our people. So, I am saying you cannot let them go to court when it's unfairly done, meaning when it's not equal. So what our role is and what I am doing and I believe what my role is an elective representative is to give the ammunition to the impoverish people - to the farmers so that they can become equal and then you take them to court or then you negotiate. You cannot negotiate on weakness, you have to negotiate on strength and that's all we are doing is giving them access to an attorney, giving them access to information, explaining the law to them and letting them understand that they are not there alone and after that if it has to go to the court then we are fine with that and even if it has to go to negotiations we are fine with that too but don't put me in a room with a sumo- wrestler that is 500 pounds of weight and I am only 50 pounds and tell me that it is fair."

The farmers are represented by Andrew Marshalleck and Green Tropics by Mikhail Arguelles.

As we've reported, there is an ongoing dispute because the 32 farmers of Valley of Peace say Green Tropics used pesticides that damaged their crops. The company says the farmers are illegally occupying the company's lands.