The Santo Domingo Market starts today with the promise of cleaning up markets

SANTO DOMINGO. From today the Ministry of Agriculture has opened the official commercial operations of the Santo Domingo Market, a promise which will ensure the provision of country produce which is the cheapest, packed and hygenic; the renovation of markets across the country, beginning with the National District; better profits for the producers and transparency in the sales chain.

The Santo Domingo Market wants to become the main commercial center for wholesalers and agricultural producers in the country. Making it happen has taken time. It was inaugurated on June 5, 2012. There was a change in political control which caused postponements for some months.

Nevertheless, its opening today, with the ExpoMerca Santo Domingo, will be with the retail markets of Cristo Rey and Villas Agricolas closed, which means that the distribution in the populated neighborhoods of the National District is only in the Villa Consuelo market, which has been opened for more than a month.

Produce and hygiene

The administrator of Mercadom, Eusebio Guzman, has assured that with the festival there will be around 80 businesses in place, of a total of 278 areas for retailers, whilst there are 616 spots for producers. In addition there are 85 wholesalers at the Mercado Nuevo, who came to an agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture two weeks before the opening.

Guzman said that the producers are responsible for the hygiene of the products they are selling. "We have held meetings and workshops over the last six months with the producers and told them that they are responsible for the products arriving in a clean and packed condition at the Market. Produce which is not clean and in crates will not be allowed to pass the entrance gate" said Guzman, who highlighted that plantains, given the cost of tidying them up, would be received covered with clean tarpaulins.

"The producers have to wash the produce in the countryside. Produce such as potatoes, wweet potatoes, yucca, should arrive clean, meat put in its display cabinets. Everything that does not arrive with the cleanliness required will be sent back," he threatened.

He also said that those who have sites in the Santo Domingo Market for meat and fish "should take precautions that they manage the waste and have cold rooms". As far as cleaning the floors and passageways are concerned, he said that there is someone responsible for each unit, and that cleaning would be done 1:00 pm and 5:00 pm.

The wholesalers at the Mercado Nuevo, as of yesterday, the most important place to sell agricultural products in Greater Santo Domingo, countered Guzman's declarations. "The situation of the producers in the south, who are poor, including those in Constanza, is that they do not have the capacity to buy a machine to wash their produce because they do not have the funds to pay the high cost of such a machine. In Constanza there is only one producer who has a machine which can do this," said the president of the Association of Businessmen of the Mercado Nuevo.

The experience of Villa Consuelo

The president of the Association of Businessmen of the Villa Consuelo Market, David Ramos, said to Diario Libre that they had managed to make their first purchases from the wholesalers in the Santo Domingo Market. "We bought around 30 sacks of rice and the prices were the lowest with good quality rice. And the conversations we had are that if we buy large quantities they will transport them," said Ramos. In addition to rice sellers they spoke to producers of eggs and meat, rice distributors, and vegetable growers.

The Markets at Cristo Rey and Villas Agricolas

The general secretary at the National District town hall, Magdalena Diaz de Mazara, said that the opening of the Santo Domingo Market was a relief for the Mercado Nuevo which would mean that it could eventually be renovated. Nevertheless, the markets in Cristo Rey and Villas Agricolas, whose opening date was unknown, would begin the process needed to open which would involve the neighborhood groups, community associations as well as the churches to enable them to open with the least amount of conflict possible, which would take at least a month. As well as handing over the premises to those who were going to run them, it depended on cleaning up the surrounding area. In the case of Villas Agricolas, it was still not known which shopkeepers would occupy the market. Whereas in the case of Cristo Rey there was agreement, and a level of knowledge amongst the traders as to who would be operating there.

Diario Libre