SHOE REPAIRING IN BELIZE DIES OUT!

SHOE REPAIR A DYING BUSINESS IN BELIZE

Francisco Margoe is 73 years old. He has been in the main section of San Ignacio Town for the past twelve years carrying on his trade of repairing shoes. Before that he used to repair shoes for the previous 18 years in the port town of Belize City on the coast. With the advent of Chinese manufacturing, excess inventory of shoes and clothes, the one thing that the world does not need anymore, is individual sewing seamstress's or shoemakers/repairers. Far as I know in my memory and I am 71 years old, Francisco here must be the last of his breed. Most of the shoes he repairs come from visiting Guatemalans from across the border. Guatemala makes shoes, but reputedly of poor quality. I do not know of another shoe repairer working in Belize? In my youth there were at least a dozen, but they have died out.

SHORTAGE OF TROPICAL EMPEROR LETTUCE SEEDS IN BELIZE

SHORTAGE OF LETTUCE SEEDS - TROPICAL EMPEROR

There is a three month shortage of Tropical Emperor leaf lettuce seeds in Belize. Agro Pro the agency seller of this top lettuce seed variety in Belize, here in the Twin Towns, has none and says that it is unlikely they will get any soon. A recent visit to Central Farm Research Station to try and get a small amount of 500 seeds met with failure. They also have none for themselves and say that before they can get the bureaucratic procedure purchase orders made out and processed, the Tropical Emperor seeds are sold out to somebody else.
TROPICAL EMPEROR leaf lettuce seeds have won out as the best variety found out, of about 30 trials of different types of lettuce in tropical Belize over the past three or four years. They come from Israel. The importer is somebody down in the coastal port town.
There is nothing else in lettuce varieties that even come close to commercial viability here in Western and Northern Belize. It is more or less a waste of time using lettuce seeds of other brands. They have been shown to be non-productive in a commercial sense.
Experiments with Lettuce Seeds have met with failure in trying to grow HEAD LETTUCE, believed possibly to be an altitude problem for our tropical lowland climate. The crops should have been planted in Late September, Early October going through the winter season. Failure to get TROPICAL EMPEROR seeds is hampering the commercial production of leaf lettuce for the import substitution for the local market.