And in other news, you've heard onion and carrot farmers complain about having too much produce and not enough buyers. Many times, their vegetables have rotted on their farms, while imported produce stacks the shelves.
Well, to combat this over production, the Ministry of Agriculture along with the Belize Marketing and Development Corporation have made efforts to get Belizean vegetables into Salvadoran markets. And it's not just onions and carrots, but pineapple and citrus too.
Today, the director of BMDC told us how they were able to accomplish this. We spoke to him via Zoom.
Valentin Carrillo, Administrator, BMDC
"You may remember in 2021 we had a surplus of onions and carrots and so the ministry decided that we needed to be proactive and find markets before it becomes a problem with over production in Belize. Hence we visited El Salvador with the minister and after that, BMDC which is the market for their agriculture trade, we took lead in that venue."
"Whenever you are going to introduce or export a commodity to a certain country, the best risk analysis is the first thing that needs to be approved. After that is approved, then the process goes normally like any other country."
"We managed and I'm happy that this week, the 18th I believe, the Ministry of Agriculture of El Salvador informed us, BMDC, that these four commodities that we applied for have been approved so that is a big step in accessing the market because that's the first step. After that then we need to consider other things like a feasibility competition with prices, quality and so forth but the first step is having access to the market."
"In 2021 when we had the surplus of onions, we took some farmers to El Salvador so that they saw the possibility of exporting there, what is needed when it comes to quantity, when it comes to price, and now it is in their hands to organize with the help of the ministry and see how we can get into this market."
"This year for example, onions, in a regular year, in may, we would have started importing onions from Mexico. This year up to now, we are not able to import because there is no local production of onions, that means in a couple of years, we will have overproduction of onions and we need to see where we will send these onions."
"This year, I don't see it possible because production and season for onions has passed and pineapple is coming to an end but next year we need to work specifically for this market and see how it goes."
