Belize is self-sufficient in rice production, meaning we can feed ourselves, but tonight this country is a rice importer. Over the next two weeks, Belize will import over 1 million pounds of rice. The good news is that this should end the rice scarcity, the bad news is that precious foreign exchange is going abroad when it could be spent at home on local industry.
The official story from the Belize Marketing Board is that the rice farmers up north in Blue Creek lost millions of pounds of paddy due to Tropical Storm Arthur. But out sources say the real story is that government and the Mennonite producers cannot agree on a price, and after negotiations fell through, government decided that its best option would be to import rice for about the same price.
And long story short, this evening the Marketing Board received its first shipment of forty eight thousand pounds of imported rice from Mexico and
the United States. Manager Roque Mai says that over the next nine days they will have imported a total of 1- point 5 million pounds that should provide a constant supply of rice for the next three months. What’s more, he says consumers across the country should see an abundance of rice in stores by Monday.
Roque Mai, Manager – Marketing Board
“Well as you look at it, the rice here is grade A, high quality and high standard and we are told by the businessman that is bringing us the rice in Belize that these are high quality in Mexico and in the USA. So we are getting rice from both the United States and Mexico. So Belizeans should have a better quality of rice on the table at the end of the day.
People are already ordering even up to five hundred sacks. So like I said, our customers can order as much as they want but the first shipment we have to minimize them but by the end of the week we should be equal.
I don’t want the farmers to feel that we ignore them or are not selling their product. The objective is because of a emergency state. The demand is there and we are listening to the concerns of the people so therefore we are here to provide the necessity to the people in need.”
Although the imported rice is high quality, Mai says you should not pay more than one dollar and thirty one cents per pound at the store. According to Mai the rice farmers down south in Big Falls are getting ready to plant and that supply of rice will become available to BMDC by September or November. As for their farmers up north they are getting ready to harvest. And Mai says that by the end of June one of the four rice producers in blue creek should start providing large supplies to the Marketing Board.
And while we’ve been viewing this shortage through the prizm of the Marketing Board, a representative of Belize Food Supply Company says that last week alone that company sold 450,000 pounds of rice across Belize. They continue to have an abundant supply. But with the Marketing Board now off their list of customers for the time being – those numbers are expected to go down this week.
