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Last night we told you about the fiery press release from the Belize Cane Farmers Association.  They spoke about their members becoming fearful of being denied access to deliver cane to the mill, and warned that this fear might fuel rage in the cane farming community that [quote] “BSI could regretâ€￾ [unquote].

This is after ASR/BSI put out a release with a dire warning; it says, quote: â€œBSI is unable under law to accept cane from farmers who do not have a cane purchase agreement in place. Therefore, if the agreement is terminated, BSI will not be able to accept cane from Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association (BSCFA) farmersâ€￾ 

Today, Vice President Mac McLachlan explained why they made that provocative statement and shared his concern that the BSCFA wants to back out of the present commercial agreement:..

Mac MacLachlan - VP, ASR Group, Int'l Relations
"From what I'm seeing from media released from BSCFA, it's becoming increasingly clear to me that BSCFA is edging towards opting out of that commercial agreement and that would be very unhappy and difficult outcome for the industry in this difficult time. This industry cannot afford to go through this period of turmoil and upheaval and interruption and because the prices that we can attract in the global market and in the EU market are different to what they were 3 years ago. So what we're saying is we've really thought about this and this is how we can move this industry forward."

Reporter
"The company issued a release and stated that under the law they will not be able to accept the cane from the membership of the BSCFA if an agreement is not made. They are saying this is a threat to cane farmers, what would be your response to that?"

Mac MacLachlan
"There is an existing agreement that is through to 2022 which is a cane purchase agreement that they signed up to and under that agreement BSCFA farmers can deliver cane. If that agreement ceases we cannot and will not be obliged to receive cane because the commercial agreement is the agreement that underpins the contract between the two parties and so we've made it very clear that in the event there is no commercial agreement, we will not be able to receive cane."

Reporter
"Is the company trying to break the BSCFA? Have you been meeting with the membership individually asking them to sign certain documents?"

Mac MacLachlan
"We haven't urged anybody to sign anything, we have a meeting to explain the benefits of the proposal and I was pleased that BSCFA directors originally embraced that idea, they wanted us to have access to farmers to explain the benefits and it's very unfortunate the media release of yesterday they seem to turn back on that urging their farmers not to talk to us about the benefits of the project. Farmers are free to associate whoever they wish and to contract whoever they wish including us. So our proposal was a very genuine practical proposal so let's keep things in place. The only amendment we will put in place is to make the revenue structure that exist already more concrete over that period of time, we're not arguing to change anything in that at all. The only change would have been because we would be investing 22 million Belize dollars into higher value added sugars that farmers would be sharing the benefits of that.â€￾

In its statement the BSCFA says, quote, “BSCFA has informed BSI that it has no intention of terminating this contract. On the contrary, in the same manner that BSI is interested in making some amendments that will benefit them, BSCFA is also interested in making some amendments for the benefit of BSCFA and its members.â€￾