Tonight, the feud over who owns Maya Ranch is back in the news as the farmers cultivating crops on that land have filed an injunction in court. The 46 complainants are residents of San Antonio Village and surrounding Cayo District allege they have maintained open, peaceful, and exclusive possession of the land for a period far exceeding the statutory limit, thereby acquiring title by prescription under the Limitation Act. Alongside the main lawsuit, the farmers applied for an urgent interim injunction to halt what they describe as an escalating campaign of intimidation by Maya Ranch Limited. They allege the company deployed armed guards, involved the police in harassment, and destroyed crops. Now, we have been following this story since January and have been provided with land papers that show that Maya Ranch Limited is the sole owner of these private properties.
But, two sides to every story and today we spoke via phone with the leader of the farmers group, Dan Lopez, who gave us an interview about the injunction. We asked him if he recognized that the land was private property and to our surprise, he said yes but he insists that it is theirs because they were working on it:
Dan Lopez, Farmer
"Yes, well, we decided to do this, you know, based on certain things that have been happening in the property where we are working, you know. We have been working for many years. Yeah, so we have some fruit trees that we plant and we plant vegetables there and just a sudden and when we go and work we see the plantation are destroyed, you know, and we have some pigs at the farm also and the pig pen is destroyed. So we decide to take this procedure, you know. To protect all what we have."
Reporter
"Okay, so we have been through this case before. Do you guys understand that the property is not yours?"
Dan Lopez
"Well, we have been working there for many years and we consider it now like ours, right? Because for many years we have been there and nobody came and stopped us until 2026, the 2nd of January, when we started to see this individual coming in and trying to stop us from working there. Yeah, so that's why we decided to take this to court so the court will do their investigation and they will make a decision, you know."
Reporter
"But you guys do understand that you guys are basically squatters on private land?"
Dan Lopez
"Yes, I recognize that, no? Yeah, well, we went there and well, we didn't know that was a private land. It's just that we wanted to work, you know. We need land to work so that's why and we have our families to maintain so, you know, we have to see how to work and try to survive and maintain our family, pay the government bills, so we have to see what to do, no?"
"Well, to avoid any further problems, you know, because we are just trying to work and survive and we don't want no problems, no? So we want everything to go in a nice manner and wait for the decision of the court but in the meanwhile be safe and try to avoid any problem that could can be caused by those individuals, "
"We have for the 6 families that are there, yeah, and the majority of them, they're being affected because sometimes they have a security patrol circling the areas and they don't allow them to go in and they have their plants there so they can't take care of it, so it's very hard."
We sought a comment from the Manager of Maya Ranch Limited and expect to get one tomorrow.