The first disbursement of funds from the budget of “Genetic improvement in Sheep and Goat project between Belize-Taiwan” for the present year 2016.
The Embassy of the Republic of China (Taiwan) is pleased to announce that on Wednesday, May 11th , 2016 , Ambassador Benjamin Ho handed over the first disbursement of $155,628.80 US fund from the budget of “ Genetic Improvement in Sheep and Goat Project” to the Deputy Prime Minister Hon. Gaspar Vega in his capacity as Minister for Agriculture. With the fund of present year it would cover expenses related to house maintenance, materials and equipment purchase, stock breeding, paddock seed/fertilizers/chemicals procurement and so on. The project seeks to improve and develop the genetic blood lines of both the sheep and goat livestock through natural breeding and the artificial insemination programs.
The “Genetic Improvement for Sheep and Goat Breeding Belize-Taiwan Project” was signed on December 2, 2015 by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture Hon. Gaspar Vega and the Ambassador of the Republic of China(Taiwan) H.E. Mr. Benjamin Ho. It is a three-year project with an approved total budget of approximately 1.62 Million US Dollars of which the Government of Belize will contribute 0.35 M US$ and the Taiwanese Government will finance 1.27 M US$.
The main objectives to be accomplished through the project are as follows:
- Improvement and development of the National Small Ruminant Center at Central Farm,
- Introduction of quality breeding stocks and renew breeding stock so as to improve the productivity of breeding stock.
- The capacity building and technical trainings of the ministry’s livestock technicians and officers, and the small ruminant producers in the country including the establishment of a traceability registry for the herd.
Sheep and goat production have tremendous growth opportunity on the national market but also on the regional export market. This project will complement other ongoing initiatives and place the industry on a firm footing for development. In particular the traceability/registry component will provide the base on which an export market could develop.
