And the bakers aren't the only ones who are having a tough time. The farmers are still faced with production losses, even though the ministry has tried to decrease both legal and illegal importation of certain produce such as onions and carrots. We've reported before on these vegetables being stuck in the field because consumers were rushing to buy the imported ones instead. And now that the ministry has adopted a "shop local" mantra, the farmers end up producing more than what the market can consume - creating a glut that leads to wastage. Here's how Minister Mai explained it:
Hon. Jose Mai - Minister of Agriculture
"Whenever you're in the business of fresh fruits and vegetables, there is always the risk because these are perishables. The risk factor is always there. Sometimes greater than others. Now we have been working to reduce losses to farmers. We have done our best to control the illegal importation of these goods from Mexico and other countries. We have done a lot to incentivize production in Belize giving the farmers assurance that we will control the legal and illegal importation of these goods which we have done pretty well but when you have a country with 280,000 people and in one year you do very well in protecting the farmers from he illegal importation and the illegal importation and they produce a lot and make money, they plant more, but the population has not grown enough to observe everything at one time. And farmers are farmers, that's what they do best, they know how to farm and they want that when the plant and they go to market, they sell everything and that's the farmer belief and you can't blame them for that. So we are still having that challenge of losses in the field, we are still having problems with marketing and distribution but we are working to solve that, we have provided cold storage containers to the farmers in strategic areas where production I strong and that we're supposed to be working now but again a small country, we need to find way to add value to crop that stays in the field, and the second is to find export markets."
