Agriculture Min Says Buy Local

The Minister of Agriculture is hoping local farmers can reclaim the dairy market in Belize. Jose Mai stood up in the House today to lament the saturation of imported cheese and milk on grocery store shelves and refrigerators, and said "no more". Yes, that's right, that Kraft Mozzarella and Cheddar cheese, and that LaLa Milk in your refrigerator will soon be replaced with its Belizean counterpart if Mai has his way. Here's how he explained why:



Channel 7

Jose Abelardo Mai - Minister of Agriculture, Food Security and Enterprise Issues Statement on Importation of Milk and Other Dairy Products

"Taking the discussion to a sober level. There is no intention or need to ban Lala or any other imported milk including other dairy products such as Cheddar or Mozzarella cheese.

There is however, a need to urgently restrict, manage and carefully monitor the importation of the mentioned commodities in order to properly balance the competition.

Fair competition is critical to ensure the survival and long term viability of our local Dairy industry and any other local industry such as bottled juices, bottled coconut water, fry tortilla among many others.

Mass importing and saturating the local market with milk from countries that subsidize their producers heavily, in my view is not fair competition.

But to further not pay import duty and at times not even GST is also not fair.

On the other hand, to further levy OUR local Dairy processors with GST and import duties on bottling/ packaging and processing equipment is totally unfair and and unacceptable and must be addressed (Something that this government will address in the very short run) with the objective of lowering the cost of production.

Our local, small but growing Dairy Industry cannot supply the country’s demand.

And if it could, there will be need to enhance the quality and shelf life of the product by investing in UHT and tetra pack technology, which at this time is being closely contemplated and which we should support.

Saturating the market with cheaper, imported, heavily subsidized, duty free milk will destroy our young industry if the importation is not managed and regulated well.

Striking a balance is critical and that is primarily the objective.

My family loves Lala Milk. I love Lala Milk but I care for our farmers and four our ailing economy.... so I have a moral and patriotic obligation.

I agree we must improve quality and shelf life of our local product.... and when that happens I will purchase more of our local milk.... and less of imported milk.

The point here is to strike a balance; a balance that will bring fair competition!!

In so doing, keep our scarce dollars at home and keep our people employed especially in these extremely difficult times".

Striking a Balance!
Jose Abelardo Mai.