Belize's Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Enterprise has responded to allegations regarding the issuance of import permits to Mexican carrot producers, as claimed in a statement by the United Democratic Party (UDP).
William Can, an agriculture officer in the Cayo District, clarified that the recent decline in carrot prices is attributed to an oversupply resulting from overlapping harvest cycles in the Orange Walk, Cayo, and Stann Creek districts, rather than imports.
"Usually the planting of carrots begin in the north it usually begins in ending of July/August. That has created a carrots coming in earlier. And then in the Cayo district our main planting season is from September to November planting going to December are considered late planting because of our production systems, right? So we mostly depend on our production system in the Cayo district to a certain extent is not irrigated, while up north they could come earlier and go later because they do have irrigation. That is in a sense what we have seen. And then the harvesting, usually the ones that are planted in July/August comes in October. But this last year the planting happened in August and the harvesting began in November, so we closed importation on that month. And since then the import permits have been closed. We have not been issuing any permits to import carrots because we have enough carrots to supply our local demand."
He further assured that the Belize Agriculture Health Authority is actively monitoring the market for contraband goods, with findings indicating that the carrots available in major markets are locally produced.
Source: lovefm.com