Yesterday it was just producers trying to get a bigger margin for the rice they produced and today it escalated to a full out rice war. Reliable reports to us this evening are that agents of the BMDC, which is the Belize Marketing Development Corporation formerly known as the Marketing Board went to two stores in the Cayo District: one in San Ignacio and another in Santa Elena where they confiscated rice that had been bought from Sintut Farms. The agents confiscated the rice because it was not bought from the BMDC. While we were unable to confirm how much rice was confiscated from the Santa Elena store, 50 bags were taken from the San Ignacio Store but these were returned after the business owner paid an additional sum of money to the BMDC functionaries.
Again, the confiscation was ordered because Sintut Farm sold the rice directly to the storeowner without going through the Marketing Board. As we reported yesterday, the dispute over who will market and distribute rice is arising between the Belize Food Supply Company, a consortium of rice producers and the government controlled BMDC.
Today there was a brief impasse as the Belize Food Supply was given a temporary license to wholesale rice. By 1 this afternoon the position had changed and the license was revoked bringing the negotiations back to square one. The main reason for this revocation it seems is that the Belize Marketing Development Co-operation is not backing down from its position of insisting on being the only wholesalers of rice in the country. Information is that the corporation may be looking at changing laws to enforce its position. This is compounded by the fact that even though there is more than enough local supply of rice in the country, the corporation has expressed through a letter to at least one producer that if they are not supplied with rice they will have to import the grain. It's a bitter stalemate and the producers maintain that the 65 cents per pound that the Marketing Board gives them is simply not enough to continue operations. They want their take to be upped to 72 cents, which they'll get by becoming wholesalers themselves.
Latest information is that there was a meeting held this afternoon with Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Local Trade Ediberto Mai and the rice producers in which it was agreed that another round of meetings will be held tomorrow morning to include officials from Supplies Control, Ministry of Agriculture, BMDC and the rice producers.
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