The 2013-2014 sugar cane season will finish next week Tuesday, in one week's time. That's the agreed date that both the cane farmers and the factory owners agreed on after extending season past the usual end date.
That's because, as we've told you, the cane farmers delayed the start by as much as 2 months due to rains and because the factory owners refused to negotiate on a payment for bagasse.
Despite the very late start, Belize Sugar Industries Limited believes that they will have milled 1.2 million tonnes of cane by next week's end.
Last week, the factory's Chief Finance Officer told our colleagues from LOVE TV that the factory intended to mill quite a bit more than that 1.2 million:
Belizario Carballo, CFO - BSI
"We will still be below what we initially anticipated will be able to produce at the start of crop before we had the delay. But we have to be grateful for the weather that has allowed us to be able to extend the crop into June. We certainly don't plan in going into the rainy season with the crop because that's always a big risk even when we started 2 months late. Our revised projections had put it to extending the crop to the middle of June which would have allowed us to mill about a million tons of cane roughly and we have however been able to push ahead beyond the middle of June. We are now in the last week in June and yesterday we had a meeting with our association and we agree that the end of the crop will be the 8th of July. I believe that if the weather holds and we are able to have the cane, if the cane is there as it is projected it is, we should be able to mill 1.2 million tons of cane this year, which will be below what we expected to receive. The indications are that there is a bit more than that, but it certainly will be more than we did last year. Last year we did one million seventy-eight thousand, so 1.2 million is certainly more than we did last year. But last year the cane quality was better. So last year even with the million seventy-eight we did 120,000 tons of sugar. This year with 1.2 million tons of cane, we will be doing about the same amount of sugar 120,000 - 121,000 tons of sugar."
Reporter
"This year will meet its obligations internationally?"
Belizario Carballo
"Yes we would. I think we certainly want to do more, but I think it will certainly make it a good crop."
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