Meet Juan Carillo, Belize’s 2025 Junior Farmer of the Year

The Ministry of Agriculture has announced its 2025 Farmers of the Year, just in time for the National Agriculture and Trade Show. These awards celebrate farmers for their dedication to food security and innovative practices. Today, we visited San Lazaro Village to chat with the Junior Farmer of the Year, twenty-five-year-old Juan Carillo. Juan dropped out of high school at fifteen to help with the family farm. At eighteen, he left to try another job, but less than a year ago, his younger brother convinced him to return as a business partner. Now, the Carillo brothers are making waves in the agriculture sector. News Five’s Paul Lopez has the story.

 

Paul Lopez, Reporting

Twenty-five-year-old Juan Carillo from San Lazaro has snagged the title of 2025 Junior Farmer of the Year. Carillo and his two brothers oversee more than a hundred acres of farmland in their village.

 

Juan Carillo, Junior Farmer of the Year

“What we do here is plant vegetables and work with the livestock also. I get into farming since I was twelve years old. I started farming with my dad. He left and I left too. I came back when I was fifteen and started on my own. I left studying and did it on my own. I did it for two or three year and one day my little brother called me and said he want to do it again and I said let us do it and here we are working together.”

 

The brothers have more than twenty sheep on their farm. They are well taken care of, with plenty of land to graze on, and are sold based on demand. When their owner calls out to them, the sheep come forward eagerly. The cows, initially far off, also come running when called.

 

Paul Lopez

“You said that at the age of fifteen you did not want to continue school anymore.”

Juan Carillo

“I did not like it, so I just drop off.”

 

Paul Lopez

“What is your thoughts on going to school to learn. Do you feel like you need to go?”

 

Juan Carillo

“Actually, I don’t feel like I need to go to learn. It is like other students, when they go to study agriculture if they go to study and don’t practice, they don’t know anything.”

Juan’s brother, Amin Carillo, persuaded him to come back to farming less than a year ago. At the time, both brothers lived away from the community. When their grandfather, who originally owned the farm, fell ill, someone needed to step in. Now, Juan and Amin are business partners, working together to keep the family farm thriving.

 

Amir Carillo, Farmer, San Lazzaro

“First of all I give thanks to the lord that we have this opportunity. We have my grandfather and father that teach us how to do agriculture.”

 

Paul Lopez

“Your brother received the Junior Farmer of the Year Award, but as he pointed out it is a team effort. Talk about how proud you are of him.”

 

Amir Carillo

“I am proud, because two of us are working good. We don’t argue, we don’t fight. We find this work fun. Sometimes when we are transplanting we said, let us race, who good do it faster.”

 

The soursop trees produce huge fruits that even the birds can’t resist. To keep the birds away, the brothers placed a pair of sunshades on one of the fruits. They’ve harvested over a thousand pounds of tomatoes and hundreds of pounds of cabbage. More than two thousand seedlings are ready for transplanting. Watermelon seedlings are already in the ground, and hundreds of sweet pepper plants are starting to bear vegetables. The farm also grows corn, cucumber, cilantro, and habanero peppers.

 

Paul Lopez

“What is the hardest thing about this job?”

Juan Carillo

“The hardest thing? Well I don’t think nothing is hard.”

 

More impressive than the vegetables they grow and the livestock they raise are Juan Carillo’s exceptional record-keeping skills. He meticulously tracks everything they cultivate, all sales to the market, and even anticipates future market needs. Additionally, the brothers’ advanced irrigation system plays a crucial role in their efforts to combat climate change.

 

Juan Carillo

“For me it is an honor for being the junior farmer of the year and my family is so proud of me.”

 

Paul Lopez

“What would you say was the main reasons why you got this award?”

 

Juan Carillo

“A part of the vegetables we have, they were seeing how we work and record keeping too. Like, let us say if you plant cabbage, you plant this amount, and when you sell, you have to see how much you spend, how much you make and from there you will see how much you win or how much you lose.”

 

Amir Carillo

“If God give us the life and the opportunity, my brother and I, this is our life, we love this so, I don’t think we will quit planting.”

Reporting for News Five, I am Paul Lopez