And while UB is swapping out its old president, you should swap out those contraband onions for locally grown ones. That's because the market is saturated with contraband, and local producers are finding it hard to sell their own. This was the plight of the Orellana onion farmers a couple weeks ago, before the Minister of Agriculture stepped in to help. And to thank him, the Orellana brother handed over a check of $500 towards fuel expenses, in hopes that the ministry will be able to visit other farmers and help with their own plights.
The handing over took place yesterday, and Minister Mai explained how he was able to rectify the situation.
Hon. Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
"The brother had visited the media or the media had visited them saying that they were unable to market their onions. Their production was one of the last ones. They planted late and they stored long, so they were the last farmers to have onions on the local market. We knew that there wasn't much onions on the market, but when I saw on the news that they were unable to market the onions, I knew something was wrong. That was on Friday and on Saturday I went to Bomba to visit the warehouse and I saw that indeed they had an abundance of onion. When I say in abundance, its about 130,000 pounds, but we, from our figures we consume like 90,000 pounds a week, so that will be a week and a half the most and they were not able to sell it, so something was wrong somewhere."
"I met with them, we decided what we will do and then move over, I ask to meet with customs, BAHA and the police. We also knew at the same time that intelligence unit had inform us that there was some onions that was supposed to come in illegally and they told us where they are coming from, so we activated a task force and I think we did well. The following week all the onions were gone. It just shows that the contraband is impossible to stop, I guess. We just try to manage it and for those who continue to contraband they are hurting the economy."
Mai also warned the public about the dangers of contraband - including diseases. He had just learnt about contraband pigs coming into the country and is concerned that this may lead to an outbreak of swine fever.
Hon. Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
"There is a outbreak of African swine fever in Dominican Republic. You would also know that the DR trades with the CARICOM countries. However, swine and swine products are not allowed to enter the CARICOM or Central America, because they have had classical swine fever in the past. They are not free of classical swine fever, but the movement of animals across the borders worries us now. I was told that there is contraband pigs now coming in now from Mexican side. I was given that information this morning. It worries me to that extent, because it shows that you are moving animals across the border from other countries into Belize. That scares me. Although Mexico does not have African swine fever nor classical swine fever, the movement of animals is something that is risky from one country to into Belize. We are free of that and we don't have a problem with it, so we have to step up our quarantine measures, we have to step up our surveillance measures, because if we are to get African swine fever in Belize, the industry is over."
"We have farmers who know. People at the market who know who contraband, because they are the ones who buys it, so they tell you who have contraband and it doesn't only come from the unofficial points of entry, a lot of it comes in through the official points of entry. It's a very well-organized group that does this, so it's difficult to stop."
