During their report on the Mexican President's visit, Prime Minister Briceno and Agriculture Minister Jose Mai underscored an important aid program from which Belizean farmers are expected to benefit.
Last Saturday, the PM and the Mexican President agreed that the Mexican program, "Sembrando Vida" or "Sowing Life," would also be implemented in Belize. Sembrando Vida is President Lopez Obrador's flagship agro-environmental project. It's a 3.4 billion-US dollar tree-planting plan that contemplated to address poverty and inequality in the rural areas of Mexico. Under the program, some 400 thousand farmers are paid about 4,500 pesos - 213 US dollars - a month to plant trees. Those trees and plants are supposed to restore over 1 million hectares of Mexican land that was degraded by deforestation.
According to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture, that project will aid 2,000 Belizean farmers. Here's how they explained the way it will work:
Hon. John Briceno - Prime Minister
"During the visit, Foreign Minister Courtney signed a memorandum of understanding with his counterpart to introduce the Sembrando Vida program to Belize. I think our Minister of Agriculture will be able to explain some more, But just to quickly, let you - explain. In our bilateral meetings, the Mexican government made it clear that Sembrando Vida, this project, will benefit 2000 small farmers in Belize. This initiative will be transformative and assist us with our fight against rural poverty in Belize."
Hon. Jose Mai - Minister of Agriculture, Food Security & Enterprise
"This project is now being implemented in Honduras, El Salvador, shortly in Guatemala, and then Belize. The project aims to increase farmers' production levels to incentivize the consumption of locally produced foods, to incentivize income generation through the marketing of locally produced commodities, to diversify the agriculture base, to broaden knowledge in organic production, to improve technology in agricultural production, and overall, to contribute to food security and job creation, to conserving natural resources and mitigating vulnerabilities to climate change. Madam Speaker, this project will provide technology, inputs, and financing to some 2,000 farmers to establish Agro-Silvio pastoral systems across Belize. While the details are still being worked out, and while our agriculture technicians are working together with our Mexican counterparts, it is our calculation the total sum of this project could be as much as $10 million, all for small farmers and to be managed and administered by the Ministry of Agriculture with Mexican counterparts."
But, "Sembrando Vida" does seem to have some cons that come with all those pros. Last year, Bloomberg News reported that the program actually encouraged deforestation in Mexico instead of the intended goal of reforestation. Farmers, who were hit hard by the pandemic, were allegedly incentivized to clear jungle forest cover in preparation for planting in order to qualify for the monthly payments. Reports were that Mexico lost forest cover of 75,000 hectares or almost the size of New York City.
