So, we've brought you extensive coverage of the thousands of Belizeans who lost their jobs in the collapsed tourism industry.
But, the tourism industry isn't the only part of the country's economy that continues to be hard-hit by the virus, and the State of Emergency, which the Barrow Government activated to contain the local spread of the virus.
The nation's food security may be at risk. That was the news delivered today by the Chairman of Quality Poultry, one of the nation's biggest poultry producing companies. He was discussing the issue with KREM TV's Evan Mose Hyde, in a new YouTube web series called "Talk To Mi."
In it, the Quality Poultry Chairman discussed how the pandemic is affecting the Mennonite community's of Spanish Lookout and their agro-production. He said the national lockdown has caused Belizeans to buy 50% less poultry than normal. As a result, producers have an unexpected surplus, and in about 2 week-time, they will run out of storage space for all that extra chicken.
Here's what Allen Reimer told Mose in an extended interview:
Allen Reimer - Chairman, Quality Poultry
"Poultry, being a Belizean favorite that everybody eats every day, but when it's on your plate, it's there, it's basic, and we're used to it. What you don't see it what happens behind the scenes, what it requires to bring that piece of poultry to your plate. We are currently working on the 2022 projections of what Belize will consume in 2022. We are today, ordering the breeder stock for those eggs and baby chicks. So, the current production was estimated in 2018. Nobody at that time ever thought about COVID-19 would come around. Now, there is the - with this lockdown - there is now a major shift in the nationwide consumption of poultry. It seems that people in lockdown, they don't eat poultry anymore, and so, the sales have dropped drastically. In some instances, to below 50% of what we're used to. So, that is the first major challenge that we're having, where we really have to cull down a lot of breeder stock. A lot of poultry products have to be moved 1 way or the other, and we don't know what will be post-COVID-19. That's going to be as interesting as this is, right now."
"For storage, that is precisely the issue. We haven't run out of storage yet, but we are still producing way more than is being consumed. So, we will be running out of storage in the near future, unless we find more temporary storage."
"We are concerned, but we will do our best. But, as the economy will open up again. As consumption increases, remember, we have a lot of frozen chicken. It's not that the food supply is in short supply, but we know that Belizeans want fresh chicken. There might be a time when they will just have to do with frozen chicken for a while until we ramp up production again. We cannot take any more risks right now. We cannot ramp up production in hopes that it will because the losses that we have sustained now are major. And we cannot expose ourselves to more risks."
Reimer said that poultry producers would be willing to sell that surplus chicken to the Government for some sort of relief program to needy families.
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