Belize is a blessed nation-state. The most important commodity today is human food, and our Belize is blessed because we are self-sufficient in the vast majority of the foods we eat.
This occurs because even though our government had embarked on a foolish mission of neo-liberalism in support of globalization, our Minister of Agriculture, Dan Silva, had taken the Creed of the PUP on the subject of self-reliance seriously and promoted self-reliance and food self-sufficiency for the foods we eat. The current Minister, to his credit, seems to be heading in the same direction.
At this time, as the global financial/economic breakdown slowly churns its way through our various economies, there is a silver lining for Belize in the near future if we are smart enough to size it.
The only way we as a nation-state will survive is to produce our way out of it. Yes, we need agriculture, but we also need manufacturing industries to produce goods for farmers both as machinery and equipment as well as regular consumer goods. Sure, we can import as we have been doing for the last 370 years, but that option is fast closing for us as we can’t pay for our imports, and we can no longer beg, nor borrow funds to pay for our imports. The global financial/economic collapse has taken care of the “beg and borrow” option we had for the last 100 years. Now, we either become self-reliant and produce for ourselves, or we will starve and then die. It is as simple as that.
Before I proceed, it is important that our leaders and people know that that coming UN conference in December in Copenhagen, Denmark, to supposed to deal with the global-warming fraud is really as George Soros has written, to establish a “one world government” and reduce the human population from about 6.8 billion to some 2.1 billion as oligarch Bill Gates has called for. If our government goes in December and signs unto that proposal the Malthusians are proposing, then Belize and most of its population will disappear very soon.
My assumption is that our present leaders are smart and love Belize enough to reject the proposed genocide at Copenhagen and follow the lead of China, India and the African countries who will insist on the sovereignty of the nation-state.
With this in mind, the cane farmers of Corozal and Orange Walk will have a good season this coming cane year as world prices are at an all-time high. In fact the last time prices went this high was in 1981. Plus, along with the fiber used in the generation of electricity, the cane farmers of the North should get at least $ 75.50 per ton for good raw cane this coming season. I only hope their association and the politicians make sure that Booker-Tate doesn’t loot them.
The recent signing of the partial scope agreement with Guatemala for black beans, yellow corn, rice, tilapia, and live cattle will help broaden our market for these products. Our main competitor is the United States of America, who is also a world leader in agriculture.
Ambrose Evans-Prichard’s latest article in the London Telegraph is entitled, “Food will never be so cheap again”. In his article, Ambrose has stated that cheap prices of food will soon end and prices will go even higher than the middle of last year, when food from wheat, corn, meat, fish, and rice had hit an all-time high.
Why? “Biofuel refineries in the US have set fresh records for grain use every month since May. Almost a third of the US corn harvest will be diverted into ethanol for motors this year, or 12 percent of the global crop.” The current drought in India, China and Asia has reduced the grain crops to an all-time low. In addition, the failure of the sugar cane crop in India, along with the huge use of sugar cane for ethanol in Brazil has made the shortage of sugar acute on global markets and has thus led to high prices. Plus, as Ambrose makes clear, China and Southeast Asia are switching to animal-protein diets, but it takes some 4 lbs of animal feed (corn & soybeans) to produce 1 lb of meat. Population by the middle of this century will increase by some 3 billion if the Malthusians don’t get their way and reduce the human population. And yields of wheat, rice and corn have not increased since Norman Borlaug’s “green revolution”. Together this will soon lead to extreme shortages and thus high prices for food.
Belize is only farming about 180,000 acres of land, but we can put some 650,000 acres or nearly four times more into agriculture. But there are three main problems to overcome to succeed and be competitive with the United States.
One, we need credit at cheap interest rates of not more than 8% for both short-term crop loans plus long term infrastructure and fixed assets loans.
Two, we need government to help by providing good infrastructure such as roads, irrigation canals, and reliable markets both locally and in the region.
And lastly, but not exclusively, local Belizeans need to farm on more than 120 acres for corn, rice, sorghum, etc., as the small parcels will never become competitive with foreign farmers. We also need to employ good management practices and use the latest technology in machinery, equipment and chemicals. Many of these items can be made in Belize to not only generate jobs but save valuable hard currency for necessary imports.
We have one thing the rest are rapidly running short of – water. Belize is blessed with abundant fresh water.
As a note: it was announced yesterday in Thailand at the ASEAN + 3 conference that China will establish a US $ 25 billion fund for the region’s infrastructure development without the usual political and economic conditions like the West, which undermine sovereignty of the developing-sector nation-states.
If we as Belizeans change and look to India, China, and Russia as new trading and political partners, we can establish Belize as the breadbasket of the Caribbean and Central America and provide the average citizen of Belize a standard of living equal to Sweden today, thus creating a happy people.