| As we told you in the top of our newscast, for the first time since the bagasse dispute broke, there is a truce between the cane farmers and the factory owners. And Monday at 10 a.m. is the date set for the first load of cane to be delivered and milled.
But while stake holders in the sugar industry have reason to breathe easier, there is one other major hurdle that needs to be addressed. The sugar roads are in dire condition, and the farmers are reporting that they can't use them to get their cane from their farms to the factory to be milled.
The chairman of the Progresso Branch of the BSCFA told the media yesterday that they sugar roads in his area is among the worst right now because of the papaya growers who used them while the rains were still ongoing in the last quarter of last year. He told us that Government needs to get the fixed like yesterday:
Hernan Villas - Chairman, BSCFA
"In my area we have a lot of problems due to the papaya company, the sugar roads are really bad conditions and I have asked to Vega to please assist us on that or else, I have talk to cane farmers, we will block the 2 entrance from the sugar road. If cane farmers can't take to their production, well even the papaya will not take out their own production. He told me that he is going to work on it. I told him about the main road and they told me that they can't touch it because it's under a contract. After that we went to the meeting with the PM and I spoke to Mr. Vega again and tell him about the road. He told me that he will work on it through NEMO because that is an emergency. We really want to start crop and now that we are today in this meeting we are showing that the cane farmers have agreed to the interim agreement, we can start crop but since the road is in bad condition now. I have talk to some cane farmers, I told them that if we have to block the road, we have to do it because only so the government is going to see the situation that we are crossing that we can't come out with our production, not only the cane farmers, but even the students because every day the buses stuck there on the road."
The chairman told us that if a show of might is what is necessary to get the Government's attention, he and the cane farmers from his branch, all 244 of them, are prepared to block the road to prevent traffic from moving through.
But it seems that such a drastic level of action is not necessary. The press release from the Office of the Prime Minister says that 2 million dollars' worth of work on the sugar roads - presumably including Progresso - will commence immediately.
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