Screwworm Detection Won’t Affect Belize’s Trade with Mexico  

The Ministry of Agriculture has confirmed a single case of screwworm in Southern Belize. Earlier this year, Mexico warned that if Belize reported any screwworm cases, livestock exports to Mexico would be halted for up to a year. However, at today’s press briefing, Minister of Agriculture Jose Abelardo Mai reassured everyone that Belize’s trade won’t be affected by this incident. Mai has been in touch with Mexico’s new Minister of Agriculture, Doctor Julio Berdegue, who has pledged his full support to Belize. Here’s more on that.

 

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture

“When we met last two weeks in Palenque, Chiapas, one of the main topics discussed was the new export protocol. At that time, they were still banned from exporting into the U.S.  But a few days after, the U.S. gave them a new protocol saying that you can export, but these are the new conditions. A while ago, Dr. Berdegue got in contact with us and his Senasica office saying that they’re almost almost completing the new protocols for Belize’s export to Mexico. It means that we will not lose a day of exporting cattle to Mexico. Our cattle exports will continue. Of course, with a different protocol. But, one of the most important protocols to us is the reduction of quarantine time from twenty-one days to seven days. You will know that a million animals find its way into Mexico from Central America. And much of it is informal, informal. So the formal trade is competing with the informal trade. The cost of exporting cattle formally is very high as compared to exporting the informal. So Mexico is of the view that if we manage to lower off exporting formally, then the majority of cattle then will go into Mexico legally with all the protocols being put in place. So, for us, that is a blessing. I believe it’s an example where you convert a challenge into an opportunity. And so Dr. Berdegue and Mexico have been very understanding of us and not a single day of cattle export will be lost because of this case of school in Belize.”