7 News Belize

Cane Country Cash Blues
posted (January 7, 2015)

Tonight, the sugar industry still has a cloud of uncertainty hanging over it. The cane farmers rejected the latest commercial agreement with BSI, and they're going to court to compel the Sugar Industries Control Board to declare the season open and force BSI/ASR to accept cane.

BSI has not made any comment, but as we've shown you the Prime Minister does not support the move to take the SICB to court.

And while the disagreement continues, the farmers' losses are mounting – as they pay the price for a delayed sugar crop for the second year in a row.

So, today, the Directors who were most forceful in the position to sign the compromise agreement, were in Belize City making the media rounds to generate public support for the plight of the farmers.

We caught up with Alfredo Ortega, one of the BSFCFA's 18 Directors, Javier Keme, the Association's Financial Officer, and Lucilo Teck, the farmer who came up with the idea to sue the SICB to open the crop season without a signed commercial agreement. First off, we asked about the cane in the fields and the investment which waits in limbo because of Sunday's outcome. Here's what they told us:

Alfredo Ortega – Director, BSCFA Orange Walk Branch

"In any crop, once you have an amount of cane that matches the capacity of the mill. This year we have an over supply. The survey has shown 1.477 million tons of cane available for this crop. Capacity of the mill is only 1.35 million tons of cane. So immediately when you do the math, even though we have a normal crop, there will be farmers who will stay with an amount of cane, even if we have a normal crop. Base in the situation right now and if the other side are considering that we need to start the crop as urgent as is, we the farmers have been saying from the early stage, we want a crop to start and we're prepared to start a crop. We have not been saying that we been holding because we cannot conclude our negotiation that we will not be starting crop, we're not using that as a weapon. Rather the other side is using that if we don't sign, there will be no crop. So those things are really negative to the industry because who are losing? It's both of us losing and the country of Belize is losing. Most of it is the farmers losing because either the one who has the biggest risk because the old lions at the factory, they're there set up in one place. But the cane in the cane field are high risk and the more vulnerable things that we have as you know in agriculture. The agriculture sector is the more vulnerable in everything. So if they is serious and if they are considering very seriously that this industry need to move on, we can come together around the table, set a date to start the crop and we continue our negotiation."

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