On Sunday night at 9:00 pm, Orange Walk Town residents may have heard the siren at the Tower Hill Factory sound to mark the end of the 2015 - 2016 cane season. The mill closed at 8:53 pm - bringing an end to a season that saw reduced prices, bad weather and slightly less sugar production than the year before. But there was more cane taken to the factory - a record volume in fact, it was just lower in quality. BSI Financial Controller Belizario Carballo gave an overview:
Belizario Carballo - CFO, ASR/BSI
"This crop was I would say good, in terms of production, despite some of the adversities that we faced during the crop. We were able to from that cane produced 134,000 tons of sugar - metric tons, which is less than what we did last crop. Last crop was a record production of 142,000 tons on sugar. So this year with more cane, because last year we did 1.2 million tons of cane. This year we did 1.3 million tons of cane. So with more cane we did a bit less sugar. On the downside prices have also drop this year and as we indicated at the start of the crop when we released the first cane price estimate, there were clearly a significant drop of close to 30% from prices that we saw previous crop. Last crop we had a final cane price of close to $75 per ton of cane. This year's estimate is $46.85. That is the current estimate. That doesn't mean it's the final price. Closer to second payment which is 5 weeks from now, we will have another revised estimate. But the estimate at this time is $46.85 and that's around the range that we are seeing for this year which highlights the drop in price that we saw in the exports markets this crop. Clearly at prices at this level, there would be pressure on farmers to cut costs. We know that one way of remaining viable, as far as cane production is concerned, is, 1) to increase income. Income is increased by improving yields. If you can get 30 tons of cane per acre as opposed to 15 tons of cane per acre, your income can be doubled. We feel that there is equipment in the field that can be more utilized to reduced costs. Efficiencies can be increased."
The drop in quality was due in part to what is known as standover cane from the previous year - and rainy weather in the last four weeks of the season.
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