Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
A BLPA Project
In 2018, the Belize Livestock Producers Association received funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) / Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) for implementation of the Project “Improving Livestock Sector Productivity and Climate Resilience in Belize”. The project’s goal is to contribute to reducing the vulnerability to climate change of small and medium size cattle farmers in Belize. Its objective is to foster the adoption of climate resilient practices and green financial products to increase livestock production in Belize. By doing so, the project will also have a beneficial impact on CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases (GHG). To help achieve its objective, Belize Livestock Producers Association (BLPA) entered into an agreement with the Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) of technical assistance throughout the life of the project.
Through the auditing process, the project team and the original 10 beef cattle producers that were identified by Belize Livestock Producers Association (BLPA) to participate in the project identified the innovations that better fit the farm conditions and made the necessary investments. Project implementation commenced in May 2018 and the project ended in September 2021. However, implementation of interventions didn’t start until June of 2019. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic was declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020 and the first case was confirmed in Belize on 23 March 2020.
Since 30 March 2021, the government has enacted several measures to reduce mobility, in and out of Belize and within the country and mandated social distancing measures. These reduced the effectiveness of the project implementation and disruption of the beef cattle market equilibrium, caused by the change of demand both locally and in sales of cattle to Guatemala.
Of the ten farms that were initially identified and audited to participate in the project, only eight completed; seven of which were in the original group and one that joined later during project implementation. However, data to assess the latter is very limited and therefore this farm has not been included in the review. Two cattle producers in the Cayo District completed the project, three in the Belize District and two in the Orange Walk District.
This report contains two parts. Part 1 is a financial review which identified that six of the seven participating producers have seen increases in the estimated total assets as of September 2021, when compared to the baseline data in 2018. Both of the farms in the Orange Walk District and one in the Cayo District recorded an increase in the number of animals sold during 2021, at the end of September 2021, when compared to 2018. The other farms show an equal amount or a decreased number of sales during the period.
Both farms in the Orange Walk District, and one in each of the Belize and Cayo District have also seen improvement in their profitability during the reporting period. Part 2 includes an assessment of the environmental impact of the innovations on the model farms specifically to GHG emissions.
