Belize Data Book

Last update: August 4, 2025

This page contains information about some of the data available in the FEWS NET Data Explorer (FDE) for Belize. This is not a comprehensive guide.

For information about using the filters and fields for specific domains in the FDE, see Choose a Data Domain.

Summary table

Country food security context

Statistical reporting units

Belize generally uses administrative units as its statistical reporting units.

Administrative (admin) units are the geographical areas into which a country is divided. FEWS NET uses the following terminology: National boundary = admin 0, First sub-national division = admin 1 (e.g., states in the United States), Second sub-national division = admin 2 (e.g., counties in the United States), and so on.

Admin 1: District

Belize is divided at the first-level of administrative units into six districts:  Belize, Cayo, Corozal, Orange Walk, Stann River, and Toledo. All agricultural data is reported using the six Admin 1 units. 

There is only one annual administrative boundary set (effective date 1982) in official use for the crop production data contained in the FDW. 

Crop data

Explore our crop data.

View our documentation on using the Crop Domain.

Crop estimate data sources

The principal source for Belize agricultural data is the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries website, located at: https://www.agriculture.gov.bz/document-center/.  Each year’s crop statistics is available at this source via the download of a year-specific spreadsheet.  

The Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB) hosts some of the same crop statistics data at its website at: https://sib.org.bz.

The GIS center at the Statistical Institute of Belize is preparing an online GIS resource, which is not yet available, at https://sib.org.bz/about-us/gis/ .

Year and season definition

There are generally at least two seasons recognized in Belize, a wet (June-October) and dry (November-April) season. The wet season is associated with the main cropping season and harvest. 

In areas with irrigation or stable water sources, there are opportunities to grow two additional crops in the year, especially for rice crops. A second cropping season potentially begins in August with a harvest in late November, and a third begins in late October with a harvest in early March.

The annual cropping year is a calendar year, running between January 1 and December 31 of the year.  It is usually described with a one-year notation, as in 2018.  

Sugar production figures are sometimes reported using a two-year notation (e.g. 2013/14) as their growth occurs in the first year and the harvest begins in the December to June period of the second year. All other crop statistics compiled in the FDE are annual data for crops harvested between January 1 and December 31.    

Weights and Measures

Original source crop statistics are generally given using acres for area, and pounds for yield and production estimates. These have been converted to hectares and metric tons in the FEWS NET database.

Production systems

Three production systems are reported for some crops:

• Milpa, or small-holder farms

• Mechanized, for larger and often commercially-oriented farming systems

• Mechanized irrigated, for commercially-produced, and often export-oriented crops

Other crop information

The FEWS NET database contains Belize crop statistics from 2000 onward at the Admin 1 level of spatial resolution and contains more than 60 crops.

Prior to 2004, maize/corn was not reported by “yellow” or ”white”.