The Opposition Leader and PUP may revisit this topic tonight at 8 p.m. when they hold the virtual launch of their party's Plan Belize policy for Agriculture.
They've already launched their proposed reform agenda for improvements to the country's education and health sectors. And now, they want to present their ideas on how to improve the agro-productive sectors. But, for their official launch tonight, they'll have to compete for the attention of the Belizeans, who may already have plans on how to party in a responsible way, as they bring in the 10th of September Holiday.
The press asked Briceno for a cliff-notes version of the policy. He said that the bottom-line of the party's Plan Belize for Agriculture is to support home-grown food and cut down on the country's imports of food that Belizeans farmers can provide. Here are those comments:
Hon. John Briceno - Leader of the Opposition
"The People's United Party feels strongly that for this country to develop, we have to put a lot more emphasis, work, [and] attention to the agriculture sector. The past government - they had put pretty much all of their eggs in the tourism basket. The pandemic hit us in March, and the tourism industry just disappeared, almost 40% of GDP, like magic, gone. We can't do that. Now, we're not saying that we're not going to give importance to the tourism industry. We're going to continue to work with them, continue to rebuild, continue to ensure that the tourists can visit us once again, safely, and expand where we can. But, we also have to work with the agriculture sector. There are 2 segments to the agriculture sector, the small farmers, and you have the large farmers. Small-scale farming is your first line of defence against poverty. Our farmers, these small farmers live in rural areas because they can grow their crops, their chickens, and their hogs, and can sell it at the market. But, when a government is allowing the importation of tomatoes, potatoes, or onions, etc., and they can't sell their products, then what do they do? They go into the urban areas to try to get a job. We can't get a job. So, what do we do? We just have more poverty, more social problems. So, the policy of the PUP is going to be that when we grow tomatoes, they will not allow anyone to import tomatoes. We're going to eat the tomatoes that we grow. We're going to let the tourist industry know, that they are not going to get special treatment to bring in the fancy tomato. Nobody comes to Belize to eat tomatoes. They come to see the natural beauty that we have, the culture, the people, the food. So, that is the first aspect of it, that we're going to eat what we grow, and we're going to encourage [us] to grow more of what we eat. The second part of the agriculture policy is going to be about opening up markets. Mexico, as it is, we buy over 250 million dollars which we import from Mexico. Mexico buys 1 million dollars from us. We have to sit down with the officials in Mexico and tell them you cannot continue to sell us 250 million, and you only buy one from us. So, we're going to have a fight for a partial-scope trade agreement, where we can sell our produce: our pork, our beef, our chickens, our eggs, shrimp, and fish products that they want in Mexico. We can do the same thing in Guatemala, in El Salvador, in the Caribbean islands. We cannot continue to import 1 billion dollars more than what we export. We are going to crash."
