In May 2011, the Belize Organic Alliance (BOA) completed the first organic certification process for two farms in the Cayo District.
Both farms went through a series of farm inspections and visits before being granted status of “transition to organic” and can now market their products
using the BOA logo. This logo will help differentiate their products from others.
BOA was formed with the purpose of providing a cost effective alternative for locally certifying organic crops. BOA is composed of members from three different farmers groups and consumers and is given technical support by the
Inter‐American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
BOA members have been given training in organizational skills, organic inspection and certification procedures and training in organic production practices.
Participating farmers now feel motivated that they have a guarantee system and a logo to support their claims as being organic producers.
As the chairman of BOA says, “it’s been a long road, and we have a lot more to go, but I’m happy we are getting somewhere”.
BOA uses the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) scheme for local certification but uses international standards as its local standards. BOA is also structured to meet the International Requirements for Organic Certification Bodies (IROCB).
Source: The Belize Organic Alliance (BOA) Certifies First Organic Farms at the RUTA website
Further information
Note
According to the latest data available for the FiBL-IFOAM survey (data 2009), 1177 or 0.8 percent of the country's agricultural land were certfied to international standards by international certifiers. There were almost 900 producers.
Contact
- Juan Tun, chair of BOA: tun.juan(at)yahoo.com
- Maximiliano Ortega, Technical Advisor, maximiliano.ortega(at)iica.int
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