The Carrots Aren't Cutting It
And right now that ear on the ground may be hearing grumblings about a carrot controversy. You may have noticed that your favorite food vendor gave you potato salad instead of coleslaw this week, or that your neighborhood dessert shop didn't have carrot cake. That's because carrots are scarce – in fact, there is only one vendor still selling at the largest market in the city. And on top of that, the vendors say the carrots they do get are unsatisfactory – mushy and unusable. And these are the vegetables they are paying top dollar for since the Ministry of Agriculture has banned the importation of carrots and the local farmers charge higher prices per sack. Today we took a trip to the market to see the carrot conundrum. Courtney Menzies has this story.
If you wanted to make coleslaw tomorrow, well, you might be out of luck.
The Michael Finnegan Market is almost out of carrots - with only one vendor
who still had the vegetable. And he says it's because carrots aren't being
imported anymore.
Voice of: Market Vendor
"Right now the issue with the carrots is there is no carrots right now
and I think they are not giving license for the Mexicans and the reason
that I heard is that once the local farmers have, you can't import
Mexicans right, but the local farmers don't have the amount to supply
the whole market because if you notice, no carrots in the market
today."
Courtney Menzies
"When you do buy local carrots. What the quality?"
Voice of: Market Vendor
"It noh too ready, to be honest it no too ready. The Mexican far
better. I notice that people prefer the Mexican than the local."
And two other market vendors had the same complaints - low quality carrots
at much higher prices.
Anny Aguilar - Market Vendor
"Our concern is that the customers are not getting what they are asking
for, the carrots are not coming as quality as we expected and the price
is very high and overall the most important thing is that we want our
customers to feel comfortable with what we have and we don't have the
correct product that we expected."
Rosa Gonzalez - Market Vendor
"The price is very different because the local 85 dollars for the sack
and it only brings 50 pounds and the Mexican bring 55 pounds and it
cost 60 dollars. The quality is totally different."
Anny Aguilar
"We agree to support the locals but if we don't have enough for the
whole country of Belize, why cut the license when you can at least
arrange a way how the whole country could have carrots so that that we
don't have to have this issue."
And when the market vendors don't have carrots, it trickles down to the
food vendors who can't make their normal dishes.
Damaris Villamil - D's Belizean Kitchen
"Carrots is a vegetable we need a lot and I use to make natural juices
and in my salads and soups and it affects a lot people, when they order
a soup, they ask what happen to the carrots, I'm sorry no carrots, I
can't make coleslaw right now because no carrots, so I try make fresh
vegs, something else but it needs the carrots for the color to me, to
complete the dish. Some people understand and some don't understand.
For the past week, I've noticed that we have a shortage of carrots
here, they bring some but they don't look fresh, so for me I don't even
buy it because I don't put it in my food that way."
And another vendor told us off camera that the wilted and dirty lettuce they get is a whole other story.
Ministry on Carrot Crisis
And we took those complaints to the Ministry of Agriculture, where the Director of Extension Services explained that they are trying to ensure that the local farmers can sell their produce rather than saturate the market with Mexican carrots. He explained that they stand by the producers, but they understand the marketplace concerns and will be investigating the matter. However, the vendors will have to stop waiting for that importation license because the local carrots are here to stay. Here's how he put it.
Clifford Martinez - Ministry of Agriculture
"When you do look what is coming out of our current production, it is
indeed a quality that is considered average as a technical person
speaking and from the technical arm of the ministry, these carrots were
assets, we visited the fields 2 weeks ago, and it was at an average
height, average weight, average quality and so sufficient to say, we
are satisfied with saying it's an average quality comparing it to
Mexican carrot would be unfair and unreasonable. In terms of the amount
that's available, remember, we did put out a release 2 weeks ago that
the first time in the past 7-8 years, that we're getting carrots in
early October, this has never happened before, so with the push and the
advances of the extension service and the ministry of agriculture that
we've been able to identify the sort of varieties that can tolerate the
heat, water stress and also meet the average quality that is required
by the domestic market. So the ministry is satisfied in what is
available, we have to highlight however that we're not in the carping
season and there seems to be some issues of post harvest handling that
might be what we need to address and that is because after harvesting,
washing of the product and packaging and then transportation, we need
to take into consideration humidity, heat, and then they way it's
packaged/stored and then delivered to the first buyer and then later on
sold to consumers. Our follow up steps will see us visiting the market
outlets because we know where the carrots are coming from, there's only
one zone the carrots are coming from and if it's not from that zone
then we need to track and see how it is that this carrot is being used
or the quality of the carrot is being compromised and them we're
blaming local farmers when in reality it might be an issue of handling
and storage. The carrot that's in the market at the moment, in a matter
of 2 days the second production is going to come out of San Carlos and
so what we're seeing is the reduction in the availability that was
supplied a week ago and then now you'll see new amounts coming out on
Sunday actually."
Martinez said this Saturday and Sunday will be harvest days for the carrots.