Belcar_web

www.uplonline.com UPL is focused on emerging as a premier global provider of total crop solutions designed to secure the world’s long-term food supply. ‘Doing Things Better’ is core to our DNA, so we can contribute to farmers’ prosperity in 124 countries with solutions that increase yields, protect crops, better harvests and prolong storage. The bigger a farmer’s yield,the bigger our smile. Farmer first. Always. BEL-CAR EXPORT & IMPORT COMPANY LIMITED explains Otto Friesen, Bel-Car’s Managing Director. “Belizean leaders, along with some government officials, started looking for an export market, and found it in the Caribbean. There was a private company that had invested a little bit into Belizean bean products, but production increased and demand for quality increased from the market side, and that company wasn’t up to the demand. The farmers got frustrated and wanted to expand their produc- tion. So, they pooled their resources, purchased the private company, along with a state-of-the-art processing plant, and became Bel-Car.” Within a decade, Bel-Car was shipping some eight million pounds of black-eyed peas throughout the Caribbean and to markets as far away as North, South, and Central America, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and Australia, making Belize the world’s fourth largest exporter of the product. “80 to 85 percent of our production goes to the Caribbean,” says Friesen. “The other AT A GLANCE BEL-CAR EXPORT & IMPORT COMPANY LIMITED WHAT: A cooperative growing and distribution company WHERE: Spanish Lookout, Belize WEBSITE: www.belcar.bz 20 percent goes almost all over the world.” Today, the company continues to export about 6.5 million pounds of black-eyed peas and five million pounds of red kidney beans, every year, with a an approximate value of $US4 million. In addition, Bel- Car exports refined cornmeal, and when available: white corn, yellow corn, hominy corn (cracked corn), corn grits, corn gluten, black beans, and light speckled kidney beans. “We are, by far, the biggest exporter of pulses (dried legumes) and grain