The lime crisis in Belize has now reached staggering proportions. It is not only the shortage that is affecting Belizeans but the soaring price as well. The limes, those few that are available, are becoming smaller and they are so immature that it costs an effort to get half a teaspoonful of juice out of one. And the cost of limes has climbed to an all-time high of $1.50 cents each.
In San Pedro it has hit hard like a bullet. What is a good fish soup (chechak) without lime? And how can you do a good conch ceviche with only a few drops of lime juice? Even the more conservative users of this precious juice who use it for cleaning fish or chicken have been hurting. Bartenders are scrambling around to locate some decent limes to fix up their cocktails, margaritas or tequila shots with lime. These are only a few of those complaining.
As for suggestions to remedy the situation, there have been many, like setting a price control on the citrus product! Sounds good, but government only places a price control on essential commodities like flour, rice, beans sugar and similar products. Another suggestion is to give licenses to a few to import limes from Mexico. This is a great suggestion but we get from reliable sources that just across the border the price of lime is jacked up as soon as they know that they are being bought by Belizeans. They price them at one dollar per lime.
Doing a little bit of research Ambergris Today understands that there is also a lime shortage in Mexico that is affecting the United States, the number one buyer of Mexican limes. In the U.S. limes are now going at $.53 cents per lime or $1.06 Bze. One U.S. woman commented that they are so expensive, she is thinking of wearing them on a necklace rather than consuming them.
And in Belize people are just crossing fingers that they can tolerate the situation until the crisis is over and praying that when the golden green citrus becomes available, that the price would settle down to normal.
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