So, while there isn't any cause for concern about Belize's food security, its agro-productive sector is trying to recover from the massive drought which hit earlier this year.
The lack of rains countrywide have caused farmers approximately 50 million dollars in losses, and so, the Government has declared a partial state of emergency to access international funding for relief efforts.
The last time we spoke with Agricultural Minister Godwin Hulse, he told us that the farmers would be receiving this aid in the form of coupon distributions, which was supposed to have started several days ago. When we brought up the topic today, he told us that there have been a few logistical challenges. Here's how he explained why the relief hasn't reached the farmers yet:
Hon. Godwin Hulse - Minister of Agriculture
"We had a little issue there, but we got our first 200,000 dollars finally from the banks that are available to us. And as I speak, Jose Alpuche, my CEO, is in Washington finalizing the World Bank's issue. So, I can't comment on that yet. He has to brief me some time this evening or tomorrow. But, we're moving quite apace. One of the things we didn't do was we wanted to finalize sugar. And you heard, we had sugar not completely with all the farmers registered. We're trying to finalize that before we can say this is the package, these are the farmers, and everybody who's not on the list is left off."
Reporter
"You said $200,000, how much are we looking forward to getting overall in total."
Hon. Godwin Hulse
"Well, we have another million that we hope to pull in very shortly. So, we're looking at roughly 1 and a half million dollars in that actual direct assistance. And then, the rest of the money is through the other programs that we've had: relief of the debt, roll-over the monies, and that sort of thing."
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