In other agricultural news, the Ministry continues to aggressively contain the spread of the new world screw-worm - a single instance of which has been found on a cattle farm in southwestern Belize.
Despite this finding the Mexican Minister of Agriculture has committed to continue to import Belizean cattle with a new protocol - which will reduce the quarantine requirement to just 7 days.
It's a major accomplishment in what can only be called agricultural diplomacy, but while the Ministry has had success with this, is it partnering effectively with its local sister agencies to stop the spread of the screwworm?
On Monday we asked about the reported deactivation of a multi sectoral committee with the Ministry of Health and wellness, BAHA, ORISA, The Department of the Environment, and IICA to assist in the sensitization and containment campaign.
We asked if it was still active:
Jules Vasquez
"As I understand it, you or someone in your ministry deactivated it because, you know, you are Superman."
Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
"Jules, you are completely misinformed. First, you've called me God, now, you call me Superman. Now, we have a very close relationship with our partners in development. We have a very close relationship with the different sectors, and we have trained people from these sectors. And so I think that you have been completely misled by calling me Superman and I act on my own. That's not so."
Jules Vasquez
"Has this multisectoral group been activated? I'm not hearing about it. I am told it has been deactivated."
Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
"Of course, we have meetings with these people to update them every week. We have BAHA reaching out to them. We have done it ourselves. And so this is a national approach. As a matter of fact, Jules, in our meeting a while ago, I asked our ministry, senior people, that they too will have to hit the ground in Toledo to visit farms to show that we are serious about keeping the spread of screw worm from expanding in Belize. We lead by example here."
Zoe Zetina, Managing Director, BAHA
"Just to add, Jules, the name of that committee is the Prevention and Response Committee, and it's utilizing the One Health approach. So it does have members from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Enterprise, from BAHA, from the Ministry of Health and Wellness, from the Ministry of Sustainable Development through the Forest Department.
"It has IICA and OIRSA also sitting as representatives on that committee. We have had several meetings with them and we have also trained their technical officers to identify larvae and wounds on humans as well as animals."
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