The Sugar Season, or "La Zafra" has started. The Crop Opening Ceremony was held this morning at the the Tower Hill Factory in Orange Walk. Now, usually the start of the season is an auspicious event - much anticipated - but this year, it is being met with some trepidation. That's because world sugar prices are tanking really badly. And so stakeholders are saying that in this time of challenge opportunities have to be seized:..
Gabriel Martinez - Chairman, BSI Control Board
"This 2017, in particular, had been the year which we had been talking about as the year of truth. We all know that the prices in the EU market are not favoring our industry. So, we are ready to start our crop for 2017-2018."
Olivia Avilez- Cane Farmers Relations, ASR/BSI
"For this Tower Hill milling facility this crop is a really special one as it marks the 50th crop season since it opened its gates in 1967 by then Premier George Cadle Price. As part of the ASR group, this now marks the 6th crop season. We are living in challenging times but one faced with opportunities. Communication and collaboration are key to solving the challenges ahead. An important step for the mill and farmers is that we have ensured our commercial agreement reaches its full maturity period of January 2022."
And while the commercial agreement is in place, the priority now is to get refined sugars into CARICOM. ASR's William Neal says the entire orientation of the sector has to shift to the Caribbean market:...
Reporter
“Can you enlighten us as to the present situation of the global market going into this new crop.â€
William Neal- Government Affairs and Communications OfficerReporter
“Globally, because there is a surplus of sugar we see, I think, last December it was as high as 24 cents, you are now down to about 13 cents, 12 cents a pound. It is very hard for you to produce sugar and sell it on the world market and that is why the Caribbean is such an important sell. Our shift has to be to find new markets. One of the markets that we are targeting is obviously the Carribean/ CARICOM market. That is going to be critical for us. The direct consumptions sugar expansion project then becomes important because of the fact that we need to have sugar that can go directly to the tables of consumers all over the Caribbean. There is a gap in terms of the sugars that the Caribbean imports, extra-regional sugar, and we feel that there is no reason for that. We feel that there is no reason for that given the producers that we have in the region. We don't feel we need to bring in sugar from places like Brazil, Columbia, and even Guatemala. We can supply that within CARICOM. CARICOM is not an overnight thing but with the support from the Government of Belize, the Trade Ministry and the Agriculture Ministry we feel that we can make some gains there and supply the sugar that is needed for the region. That is going to be critical for the survival of our own industry. Last year we had a production of 144 thousand tons. In Belize, we consume 15 thousand tons. So, obviously, there is a need for markets to sell the excess that we have.â€
Belize is one of only four sugar producing countries remaining in CARICOM.
The production estimate for this crop is 1.37 million tons.
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