Today in Corozal, a new Wholesale Farmer's Market was inaugurated. It was financed by the European Union through funds from the Accompanying Measures for Sugar. The idea is to encourage diversification of the agricultural production base in the Orange Walk and Corozal districts - to get away from simply that mono-crop of sugar - because world prices are going down.
Agriculture Minister Godwin Hulse says the new market will offer an opportunity to farmers:..
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Agriculture
"People buy and sell produce. Produce come from people also, from the farmers which my ministry represents, people growing, people toiling in the sun, people putting their sweat and blood and having to bring those produce and for the most part in this country a middle man grabs it and he makes all the money, because what he does he says well I can't pay you so much because by the end of the day I would not have sold it, so he makes sure that if he buys it at 5 in the morning, by 9 he made all his money and on the rest he can give away, but he doesn't gives it away, he keeps it going on. He doesn't even give it to children homes, because that's what traders do. It's a part of our system and our structure. But the toil, the blood, the labor of the farmer is generally unrecognized and he gets the least and he puts the most. That is always the problem."
"So what this represents is an opportunity to change that paradigm a little bit and to ensure that the sweat and blood is rewarded by his contact with the consumer who comes here. Even though we say wholesale market, these things merfe into retail. So that is really what a market is about."
The new Market is valued at $384 thousand dollars.
Email
Print