Local News

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Agriculture today introduced a pilot project.  Reporter Marion Ali is in the Blue Creek community and filed this report.

MARION ALI

News Reporter

Love FM

“we’re in the Blue Creek community in the Orange Walk District where this morning the Ministry of Natural Resources and Agriculture will launch a pilot project for the Belize National Sanitary Cattle Plan project.  It’s a project that ensures that the cattle in Belize is being prepared and ready for the export market in terms of the health condition of them.  To give us a better idea of what the project will entail I have with me the Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr. Jose Alpuche.”

JOSE ALPUCHE

Chief Executive Officer

Ministry of Natural Resources & Agriculture

“Basically, we’ve had ambitions for quite some time to begin exporting live cattle to Mexico and hopefully to other countries.  We will eventually test every head of cattle in the country for --, tuberculosis and in addition to that they will be tagged and basically be given an ID for traceability.  So we’re implementing something totally new.  It’s a countrywide program and what we will see today is the start of the program here in Blue Creek.  Blue Creek was chosen because it has a very high concentration of animals – eighteen to twenty thousand heads and it’s geographically isolated so we could quarantine it fairly easily.  But we hope that while we’re doing the testing of the animals, establishing the registry, tagging the animals, putting the traceability system in place that hopefully within two to three months we would be able to begin exporting live cattle here from Blue Creek into Mexico.”

MARION ALI

News Reporter

Love FM

“Now this is a practice you say will take place throughout the country but we have very remote areas in the Toledo district, do you have a countrywide system?”

JOSE ALPUCHE

Chief Executive Officer

Ministry of Natural Resources & Agriculture

“Well, why we’re doing this pilot project is to ensure that all our systems are in place, there will be actually envisioned twelve teams working at a time in region by region.  We’re starting with Blue Creek – Blue Creek will be quarantined then we move to the Corozal and Orange Walk Districts – that area will be quarantined then we go further down south.  So there is a systematic approach that will be taken to ensure that every cattle is tested.  Now I must say that this will be a three year program and animals will have to be tested more than once because what we’re trying doing is establish the prevalence of the disease.  It is very likely that we will have a very low prevalence of the disease but that is normal.  But once we know it, we can put in place proper quarantine and proper screening methodology and with the traceability we would be able to identify what farm, what cattle, breed, etc. very easily.”

MARION ALI

News Reporter

Love FM

“In terms of the finance, the cost – how much is being invested?  How much do we expect to get back in revenues from the export market? And when the three years end, will there be some other form of continuity?”

JOSE ALPUCHE

Chief Executive Officer

Ministry of Natural Resources & Agriculture

“Over twelve million Belize dollars is expected to be spent on this program.  The European Union hopefully is providing about a half of that, just over six million Belize dollars; the Ministry of Agriculture, well Government and BAHA – about three point five million dollars, the Mexican Government, SANISICA through OIRSA is providing four hundred thousand Belize dollars and some technical assistance and the livestock producers along with the BLP is expected to put in about two and a quarter million dollars – that’s for the three year program.  But once this initial test is through, as I said it will become a part of doing business, so it will be a cost that will be factored in into doing business.  It is an open secret, an informal trade in cattle with neighboring countries but that informal trade is being done at a low price.  We expect that once we’re able to export, the farmers, the producers here in Belize would begin to obtain a fairer price so we don’t expect the domestic cost of meat to go up.  However, if we can truly develop an export market the benefits to Belize in terms of additional revenue just on top of what they’re doing with the informal trade but also do an expansion in the livestock, the cattle industry would be tremendous.”

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