In lighter news, the El Salvador's Minister of Agriculture is currently in Belize, probably enjoying a plate of rice and beans right about now. And it's those same Belizean beans that may soon be making its way to Salvador shelves.
That's because Belize's minister is working on increasing trade between the two countries, while a partial scope agreement is being drafted in the background. And since Minister Jose Mai has visited El Salvador already, it was Minister Oscar Guardado's turn to come to Belize to tour the farms that may soon be providing their produce.
Courtney Menzies went west to meet them and has this story.
The gates of trade between Belize and El Salvador were opened in July when carrots, onions, pineapple, and citrus got the green light to head south.
But that was only the start. And right now, the Salvadoran Minister of Agriculture is in Belize to discuss how those gates could be opened wider. Today he met with Belize's Agriculture Minister, who later told us the plans for cooperation between the two countries.
Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
"6 million people and they import 85% of what they consume and we have 400,000 people, strong in grain production, strong in soybean, red kidney beans, meat, and so we're looking at that opportunity. Also looking at technical cooperation, so today they reciprocated with their visit, looking for two major things. One is technically cooperation with our researchers and education institutions, Central Farm agriculture station and of course UB has a faculty of agriculture now and they're also looking at the trade opportunities, reciprocal opportunities, not only what we can sell to them but what they can export to us."
"They consume the small beans, not the kidney beans, and they import thousands of tons and their interest is, they have said, can you supply us with that? They're also looking at white corn, they import much white corn for human consumption, but they also import yellow corn for animal feed and we will see both today, we're also looking at some of the vegetables, carrots for example, and we're also looking at some fruits, which we'll all see today."
And the first stop on the two day tour was at TKO farms, where the Minister and his delegation tasted natural soursop juices, and even got to take home some of the fruit, along with with TKO products.
He also got the chance to tour their factory since, as Minister Mai said, they wanted to ensure that Belize could meet their market demands.
And according to the Belize Marketing and Development Corporation, the plan would be to have farms that are solely concentrated on doing just that.
Valentin Carillo, Administrator, BMDC
"Before we were, like for example, carrots and onions, which was an overproduction, but we don't want to target when there's overproduction, we want to target the market itself as a seasonal thing, plant only for that market, not what we have overproduced because it doesn't work like that. Target the market and have some farms concentrating, producing for that market, that's all we want."
"Once we have our contact over there, which we have, and they say we want to import the minimum this quantity then we can arrange with the investors over here to see that it is produce weekly or however they want it, the customer wants."
But the relationship would be give and take, and El Salvador's exports to Belize would also increase.
Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
"I suspect that they are looking at processed foods. They are very strong in agro processing and value adding. You see all these Diana chips and so on. They import corn and then they process it and then they export it to other countries so I suspect they're looking at that."
Oscar Guardado, Minister of Agriculture, El Salvador
"We're looking forward to having a deep connection with Belize, integration with Belize, among also the whole Central America region to exchange knowledge and to have this feeling of peace among the whole country and cooperation because Belize had knowledge that we don't have a vice versa."
"Most of the interest is in boosting the economy among the whole Central America region, also the diplomatic relationships that we have, as our president Nayib Bukele has commanded us and asked the Ministry of Agriculture to make that deep integration among the region."
And that boost to Belize's economy is exactly what Minister Mai is hoping for.
Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
"We can all learn from the experiences post COVID when we started the heavy exportation of cattle to Mexico and Guatemala, that just generated enough foreign exchange, it created employment and income to families and you can see how much their sector grew in one year, I think the agriculture sector grew by 24% so the more you export, the better you are, the more you export, the lesser you import, the much better you are."
And after this tour, both ministers headed to Spanish Lookout to see more of what Belize's farms can offer.
Tomorrow, both ministers will be visiting Ayinha Farms in Lemonal, and Indian Church in Orange Walk.
