Pro-Organic Belize (POB), founded in 2016, recently held its annual general meeting via Zoom. Elected to the board of directors to serve for two years were Karin Wesdyk, Josie Flowers, and Keon Clare. They join Mary Loan, Dottie Feucht, Robin Clarke, Dr. Sophia Clarke, and John Briggs who serve until 2022.
Discussed at the meeting were highlights of the previous year, including monthly speakers which started as a Tuesday afternoon event and ended with a change to Saturdays at 3:00 to accommodate a wider audience. Speakers in 2020 included Dr. Rosita Arvigo who spoke on Medicinal Herbs, Dr. Ed Boles on Watersheds, Helen Choco on CATIE Projects in Belize, Fay Garnet on Agroforestry Systems and Aurelio Sho on Our Forests are our Future. Other speakers for 2020 included Kim Ringland who spoke on Landscaping with Native Herbs, Gary Ramirez on Improving Agriculture, and Henry Peller on Seed Saving.
Farmers across Belize were negatively affected by hurricanes last November, which affected mostly their vegetable crops. The Horticulture Unit in Central Farm now seeks to ameliorate those effects with a boost in innovative technologies for the promotion of sustainable production systems.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security, and Enterprise, along with Mr. Fermin Blanco, OIRSA (Organismo Internacional Regional de Sanidad Agropecuaria) country representative, recently visited Central Farm to inspect vegetable seedlings.
A total of 18,000 seedlings will be distributed to farmers and producers at all levels, including backyard gardeners. The seedlings were donated as seeds by the OIRSA Regional Emergency Fund to assist vegetable farmers who were affected by the flooding caused by storms Eta and Iota.
Salazar, Nursery Manager
“Using regular soil which is sieved, soil and sand and humus. The soil is sieved, the sand as well. And Humus as you may know is castings from the worm that we grow here, the California worm. In this case we are using two parts of soil, one part of sand and half part of humus. We mix this together and that is how we are replacing a commercial product which we call the germinating mix.”
This process has saved the Ministry 60,000 dollars. Humus is the key component of this mix, and here at Central Farm there is an organic section filled with these California worms that digest cow manure to create the humus. The mix is then placed in trays. Tiny holes are created in each section of the tray. A single seed is then placed in each hole. Those trays are then placed in a green house, where they sit until they reach a stage fit for distribution to farmers.
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