Belize GATE Program

Tomato plant at Forest Home school

On January 7th Plenty Belize held a teacher-training workshop with a morning theory session at University of Belize Toledo Campus, followed by a hands-on session after lunch at the demonstration garden at Forest Home Methodist School. More than 20 teachers took the last day of their holiday to learn more about soils, nutrients, composting, transplanting, direct-planting, raised beds, organic pest controls, and other agricultural topics. Besides the positive feedback from the teachers, we have seen improvements in the gardens at several schools after this training.

We organized a celebration at Laguna Government School for Friday, January 21, 2005 to honor their successful school garden program and effectively graduate the school from the Garden-based Agriculture for Toledo’s Environment (GATE) Project. The event was started with a tasty and nutritious lunch cooked in the school kitchen, including a salad from the school garden and vegetable rice. This gave time for Plenty staff, villagers, school staff, and invited guests to mingle, and enjoy time together. Guests included Master of Ceremonies Mr. Paul Mahung (LOVE-FM Correspondent and former Manager of Toledo District Catholic Schools), Dr. Ludwig Palacio (Director, Toledo Development Corporation who had assisted the school with a Lorena stove for the school kitchen), Mr. Brian Holland (Manager of Belize Minerals Ltd. which donates all the dolomite we want for for increasing soil PH in the school gardens), and Mr. Barry Palacio (District Supervisor for the Department of Agriculture).

The ceremony was a mix of speeches by the village leaders and guests, a report on the garden program by the principal, and 3 wonderful presentations by the students including a poem, a song, and a report on how to start a garden. Items in the speeches ranged across the spectrum: Congratulations to the students and villagers for the hard work that is paying off in a successful garden; the need for vegetables in our diets for good nutrition, as the Toledo District suffers from the worst malnutrition in Belize (44% of children); the economic crisis that Belize is in (Belize has the 4th worst ratio of national debt:exports in the world) and how we need to have food security and stop importing foodstuffs (over US$40 Million of food is imported annually); the potential of agriculture as a career; the nutritious value of local foods such as calaloo and yams; words of encouragement and empowerment from keynote speaker Dr. Palacio; and many thanks to Plenty Belize for the years of help given to the school and village.