Green Valley Oil begins local production of Belize-grown soybean cooking oil

Belize’s soybean industry is taking a step forward with the opening of a new facility that will allow locally grown soybeans to be processed into cooking oil right here at home. For years, much of the crude soybean oil produced during animal feed processing was exported. Now, Green Valley Oil is looking to keep more of that value within Belize. Reporter Paul Diaz has the story.

Paul Diaz, Love News: Belize’s soybean farmers have spent years building an industry that now produces millions of pounds of soybeans annually. But while the crop was being grown and produced locally, much of the crude soybean oil extracted during animal feed production was being exported to regional markets. Now, that is beginning to change. Green Valley Oil has officially opened a facility today in Spanish Lookout that will refine the crude soybean oil locally and turn it into a finished cooking product for customers. The development is being seen as a move toward greater value-added agriculture, allowing Belize to do more with what is already produced. Senior Advisor of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and New Growth Industries, Hugh O’Brien, told Love News the project represents an important step for the country’s agricultural sector.

Hugh O’Brien, Senior Advisor of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and New Growth Industries: “This move, this new soybean oil refinery launching today is that Belize made significant strides in soybean production beginning back in 2000 and when we started producing soybeans on a more commercial scale in Belize. And so for a period of time between the year 2000 and 2005, soybean production grew to just about 3,000 or so acres. And then by 2015 we were between 7,000 and 8,000 acres. But 2020 a major initiative was launched to try to make Belize self-sufficient in soybeans. And by 2023, Belize produced between 50 and 60 million pounds of soybean. The rest is called soybean meal that is used to produce animal feed. And so we’ve been producing animal feed for over 15 years now on a growing scale from soybean. But as the oil production, the crude oil production went up Belize had to end up exporting this crude oil and we were exporting this crude oil at a loss for the farmers and the feed mill. So this plant now is able to take that crude soybean oil and convert it to a higher-value product that can now be used directly in the kitchen and in our restaurants and tourism resorts and other facilities.”

Paul Diaz, Love News: O’Brien then said moving from exporting raw materials to producing finished products can create more opportunities for farmers and strengthen Belize’s agricultural economy.

Hugh O’Brien, Senior Advisor of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and New Growth Industries: “This initiative here falls right in line with the government’s approach to encourage more value-added locally and let these new value-added products compete fairly on the local shelves of our supermarkets with imported products. We’re trying our best here at the ministry to move our products to a higher level of value that way create more higher-end employment in the country, and creating more jobs for lab technicians and engineers and agro-processors, and also having the dollar circulate more in the country and therefore in so doing grow the economy, create jobs, and make our country more really, truly independent, self-sufficient and independent.”

Paul Diaz, Love News:  The Ministry of Agriculture says initiatives like Green Valley Oil support efforts to expand local processing and reduce dependence on imported goods. For soybean farmers the development means their crop now has a longer journey, moving from the farm through processing and eventually onto store shelves as Belize-produced products.