And turning back now to those M.O.U signings, Minister Mai joined the Taiwanese Ambassador and visiting OIRSA Executive Director, Raul Rodas, for the signing of a double agreement that seeks to protect Belize's agricultural products and trade agreements from foreign plant pathogens.
Here's what he shared with the media about the changes that have been made at the P.G.I.A
Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
"These M.O.U. as a matter of fact should have been signed a long time ago, we have a new director of OIRSA, um, by the name of Raul Rodas, originally fro Honduras. So, he was just sworn in couple weeks ago and so it is time for us to sign to make it official, these M.O.U.'s one of them is the PGIA, you know we have X-Ray machines now that OIRSA um, manages, OIRSA and in conjunction with BAHA, now these machines were put in place there as a result of the Central American countries coming together seeing that to to maintain the area free of diseases, free of pests, or free of, and to try to manage the importation of illegal goods that may be contaminated with diseases, viruses, or to a great extent pests. We are all very concerned about the Fuserum disease in Colombia, Venezuela and Peru. This disease that affects banana, especially the Cavendish that we have is very very serious, it is a threat to the region and the all the ministers, all the countries agreed that they will place the country's X-Ray machines to capture any organic product coming in that may not be declared banana being one of them and so that is one to add to that is the collaboration with OIRSA again with the canine unit if you would walk through airports in other countries you would see that the agriculture department has their personnel walk through with dogs those dogs are trained to sniff out organic products, seeds, organic material, fruits, meat and these things so it is very important, why? Because we signed to these agreements, we signed to these conventions so that we do this to protect each other, if we as a country, u, fail to implement those two actions, then the other Central American countries are saying you know what I don't want to trade with you because you are a risk to me so I had to convince Cabinet because I was saying we will have a line of people at the airport waiting but this is very important anywhere you go right now there is a long line waiting. So, having these two M.O.U's in place is a safeguard for Belize's agriculture."
According to Mai, the Ministry of Agriculture's canine officers have been posted at the P.G.I.A. for the past 6 months.
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