The National 4-H Council held their annual general meeting last Saturday, June 21, at the George Price Memorial Centre in Belmopan. They were also celebrating the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the 4-H movement in Belize.
At this meeting, several awards were given to outstanding members of the movement throughout the years, and a special award was given to the 4-H president, Mr. Karl H. Menzies, who was their first and only presiding officer. He was there from the beginning when they were only a handful, saw the movement grow to as many as 2500 and decline to its present 500 in the last ten years and now, is the moving force in an initiative with a strong commitment from the government to bring new energies and resources to promote and expand the movement countrywide.
This writer is honored to be a member of the recently formed Council and is convinced that this organization is as important and praiseworthy as the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides in forming and strengthening the character and attitudes of young people, with a view to their becoming healthy and productive citizens of our country.
When you are looking for a man to lead a movement like 4-H, you don’t choose one who has a lot of time to spare: you find someone who is spending all his time running a business and serving on a lot of boards and committees, with little time for himself, someone like Mr. Karl H. Menzies. And, if he says yes, you can be sure that he will do the job and do it well.
This column is by way of paying my personal tribute to a good friend and outstanding Belizean.
Changing habits
It is the interests of the government and people that we change our eating habits from imported foods in cans to fresh food grown by our farmers but, there is a problem: imported foods compare favorably in price and, you can keep them without refrigeration.
We have to find a way to get locally produced food to the dinner table as soon as possible after it leaves the ground and, we have to bring the price of local food down.
Fresh food is healthier. Imported food puts a strain on our foreign exchange earnings. We need a cannery to preserve excess production, not several canneries, only one to begin with – a standard can with different labels. This has to be a government initiative, the way BTA was before it became BTL. Later it may become feasible for private enterprise to take over.