And right now that ear on the ground may be hearing grumblings about a carrot controversy. You may have noticed that your favorite food vendor gave you potato salad instead of coleslaw this week, or that your neighborhood dessert shop didn't have carrot cake. That's because carrots are scarce – in fact, there is only one vendor still selling at the largest market in the city. And on top of that, the vendors say the carrots they do get are unsatisfactory – mushy and unusable. And these are the vegetables they are paying top dollar for since the Ministry of Agriculture has banned the importation of carrots and the local farmers charge higher prices per sack. Today we took a trip to the market to see the carrot conundrum. Courtney Menzies has this story.
If you wanted to make coleslaw tomorrow, well, you might be out of luck. The Michael Finnegan Market is almost out of carrots - with only one vendor who still had the vegetable. And he says it's because carrots aren't being imported anymore.
Voice of: Market Vendor
"Right now the issue with the carrots is there is no carrots right now and I think they are not giving license for the Mexicans and the reason that I heard is that once the local farmers have, you can't import Mexicans right, but the local farmers don't have the amount to supply the whole market because if you notice, no carrots in the market today."
Courtney Menzies
"When you do buy local carrots. What the quality?"
Voice of: Market Vendor
"It noh too ready, to be honest it no too ready. The Mexican far better. I notice that people prefer the Mexican than the local."
And two other market vendors had the same complaints - low quality carrots at much higher prices.
Anny Aguilar - Market Vendor
"Our concern is that the customers are not getting what they are asking for, the carrots are not coming as quality as we expected and the price is very high and overall the most important thing is that we want our customers to feel comfortable with what we have and we don't have the correct product that we expected."
Rosa Gonzalez - Market Vendor
"The price is very different because the local 85 dollars for the sack and it only brings 50 pounds and the Mexican bring 55 pounds and it cost 60 dollars. The quality is totally different."
Anny Aguilar
"We agree to support the locals but if we don't have enough for the whole country of Belize, why cut the license when you can at least arrange a way how the whole country could have carrots so that that we don't have to have this issue."
And when the market vendors don't have carrots, it trickles down to the food vendors who can't make their normal dishes.
Damaris Villamil - D's Belizean Kitchen
"Carrots is a vegetable we need a lot and I use to make natural juices and in my salads and soups and it affects a lot people, when they order a soup, they ask what happen to the carrots, I'm sorry no carrots, I can't make coleslaw right now because no carrots, so I try make fresh vegs, something else but it needs the carrots for the color to me, to complete the dish. Some people understand and some don't understand. For the past week, I've noticed that we have a shortage of carrots here, they bring some but they don't look fresh, so for me I don't even buy it because I don't put it in my food that way."
And another vendor told us off camera that the wilted and dirty lettuce they get is a whole other story.
