Finally, Belize has successfully exported a legal truckload of cattle to Mexico. In the 90’s the BEEF trade thrived between the neighboring countries, but that was before mad cow and foot and mouth disease. Since then, the Mexicans, as part of NAFTA, were forced to enact strict standards for animal health, and it took Belize more than a decade to catch up. But, finally, we have and yesterday after some ominous delays, the Mexican Cattle Truck pulled into Blue Creek, all the inspections and paper work were taken care of, the shipment was sealed by BAHA, and then sent off to the northern border crossing. When it finally made it across a collective sigh was surely heard. As the cattle-men explain, it’s an opportune time to get the trade going:

Albert Reimer, Cattle owner
“We’ve been working on this for a long time. It’s finally coming to past we think, if we can get them across the border and we hope that this is the opening of a new business, enterprise that we are going to follow. We need more market and I think it’s going to help the beef industry a lot. This has been a learning experience for us because we now see what the quality is and that they require and also the sanitation requirements that we have to meet and we have to learn to have product that’s constant. I refer to as a box of Corn Flakes, when you buy you know what you get. That’s what we need to do with our animals; they have to be the same quality, size, sanitation requirement every time.” Continue reading “Finally, Belize Cattle Make It Across Border For Legal Export” →