The crisis of world food supply and escalating prices has had everyone talking, including a team of ministers from the Central American region who met last Friday, April 18, to discuss the urgent issue of food security.
The region’s food supply is in big trouble, and the main consensus the ministers reached was that their citizens need to start providing for themselves, rather than relying on imports from other countries.
Only this week, ADM Belize Mills Limited had to inform Antigua and Barbuda that it could not meet its request for flour. As we had reported in last week’s edition, Antigua was intending to source flour from Belize and Guyana – this following a regional meeting of Caribbean countries.
Chief Agricultural Officer, Eugene Waight, told Amandala today that CARICOM, as an organization, has been looking to Belize as a potential source to help fill flour demands in Caribbean countries. However, we are informed by ADM Belize Mills that it is unable to meet the demands of exporting flour.
Even while Belize engages in discussion with its Caribbean counterparts in coping with the food supply crisis, it is also engaged in similar discussions with its sister countries in Central America.
To this end, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Ambassador Fred Martinez and Chief Agricultural Officer, Mr. Eugene Waight represented the Minister of Agriculture, Belize, at a regional inter-sectoral meeting on food security held in El Salvador last Friday, April 18.
“The meeting also shared with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs the regional grain production strategy developed by the Council of Ministers of Agriculture of Central America, the CAC,” said a Government of Belize press release, adding that the purpose of the meeting was to sensitize the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the region about the situation of the global demand and supply of basic grains, which is contributing to the sudden increase in the cost of living.
Waight explained to Amandala that the strategy is an initiative of the Ministers of Agriculture in the region to look at their own supply of basic food grains such as corn, beans and sorghum.
Like other countries in the region, said Waight, Belize is totally dependent on foreign wheat supply to produce flour. But Belize does produce its own corn and beans.
The region has decided to revisit the idea of planting their own crops to feed themselves, and already some governments have made allocations to pump millions into farming ventures. For example, Guatemala has allocated US$52 million for investment in the farming of basic food grains, while Honduras has allocated US$110 million for agricultural production.
He told us that while Belize has not yet made any such allocation, something is being proposed for the new budget, which Finance Minister, Prime Minister Dean Barrow, has said is due in June.
A highlight of the Central American meeting was the request for the Ministers of Foreign Affairs to elevate the issue of food security on the agenda at the summit of Heads of State, slated to be held on May 7 in El Salvador.
“At this meeting the Heads of State will be asked to support an increase in the budgetary allocations of the Ministries of Agriculture in order for them to be able to implement the national food security programs,” said GOB’s release.