The sugar crop is supposed to start at the end of November or early December and ASR-BSI and the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association still have not reached an agreement on payment for bagasse; want to know what's worse?: They aren't even close.

To communicate their sense of urgency, ASR has dispatched a senior executive to talk to the media. That's a change of strategy, since BSI rarely speaks to the media. But Mac McLachlan has been deployed to get ASR's side of the story out there and today he came to 7News to discuss the narrow timeline to reach a settlement:…

Mac McLachlan, International Relations Advisor - ASR

"We have no agreement. We're 8 weeks away from a cane crop and as things stand we have no commercial agreement to purchase cane as we stand. That is a very worrying situation for us, and I believe it is a worrying situation for the cane farmers as well. We're determined that we won't have a repeat of what happened last year because the industry itself, not just ASR, but the cane farmers can't afford that. The whole industry cannot afford that. We think that the cost of the delay of the crop last year was something like 7 million Belize dollars. We're confronting a very difficult competitive time for the sugar industry. The whole industry can't afford to have a delay in the crop. We are determined, it's our desire to have in place agreements with cane farmers and a start of crop at the optimal time, that's what we're aiming for. We hope BSCA will come to the table with that in mind as well."

ASR-BSI sent the cane farmers a full draft purchase agreement on September eighth, which the Association responded to yesterday.

But our information is that they still differ substantially on fundamental issues – not least of them, the ownership of the cane. The farmers say they retain ownership even after it is milled, while ASR-BSI says once they've paid for it, the farmers have sold it, and the company owns it.

McLachlan explained the ASR position:…

Mac McLachlan

"Now just recently it seems to me that the leadership of BSCA are trying to move the gold post on this and despite the enormous investment ASR has put into this company by purchasing BSI, 180 million dollars, it would appear the BSCA's leadership is suggestion that we have is some sort of sugar processing centre, processing their sugar, and it continues to be their sugar. This is an anomaly. We have to be clear, this has never been the case in Belize, it's not the case in any sugar industry in the world and it can't be the situation here. When we purchase sugar cane, it comes our sugar cane."

The two sides are expected to meet later this month.