Much to everyone’s relief, the 2014-2015 sugar cane grinding season started on Monday, January 26, after a protracted delay between the farmers and the millers, Belize Sugar Industries Limited (BSI) and their majority shareholder, American Sugar Refinery (ASR).
Cane farmer, Herminito Coyoc, Jr. from the Belize Sugar Cane Farmer’s Association was first in the queue driving a green tractor and hauling 3 loads of sugar cane. He was all smiles and video cameras focused their attention on him. He was the first to deliver cane after a protracted start to the season. After delivering his first load, he was handed a receipt which he gladly posed to take a picture with to signal the start of the sugar cane crop.Â
Monday was chosen as the official start date after the Sugar Industries Control Board (SICB) consulted with the millers and the 3 separate cane farming associations, those being the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association, the Corozal Sugar Cane Producers Association and the Progressive Sugar Cane Producers Association. Since the passage of the amendment to the Sugar Industry Act, which the Barrow Administration tabled at the last House Meeting, cane farmers can form or belong to any association other than the BSCFA, and still retain all rights and privileges as though they were part of the BSCFA. That meeting happened on Thursday, January 22, and there was a follow up meeting which was held between the 3 associations and the Sugar Cane Production Committee (SCPC). That was important for each association to give input as to the giving up of which association delivers their cane and when.
By the count of the factory owners, the crop is delayed by 42 days, or 6 weeks behind. Counting back from the start date, the millers say that the season could have started on December 15. Readers may remember that this was the day after the special general meeting held by the committee of management of the BSCFA. That was the meeting where the majority accepted the compromise deal, which Prime Minister Dean Barrow and his colleagues hammered out with BSI/ASR.
Readers know very well that because of the meddling by outsiders, fueled by radicals within the BSCFA, the management of the BSCFA was forced to hold another meeting which was hijacked. The farmers rejected the deal the next time around due to the campaign of propaganda, and it was not until a third general meeting that the damage was partially repaired.
Those chickens have come home to roost because the season is shortened significantly. Most of the experts estimated that up to the start of the season, there was approximately 1.477 million tonnes of cane in the fields. The millers estimate that if there was not that additional six weeks of unnecessary delay, they would already have milled about 300,000 tonnes of cane. They believe however, that they can mill at least 1.2 million tonnes, which means that 247 thousand tonnes might go to waste. If the readers are still following, that amount of cane would not be in jeopardy if the season started on time.
So, cane farmers will lose part of their investment and might become indebted to the bank. The blame for that is at the doorsteps of those meddlers and radicals, who claim that they were trying to do good for the cane farmers they represent. Now, to try to remedy some of the damage done, the officials at the SCPC must regulate each farmer from each of the 3 association to ensure equity. There will no doubt be a scramble by the farmers to try to deliver all of the cane in their fields, but to make sure that each gets a fair chance, the SCPC will only allow each of the approximately 5,500 farmers to deliver 80% of their cane, meaning that they may lose 1/4 of their production, which may more than likely include the profit margins they would have earned for this year’s crop.
For this to be possible, the millers – the ‘big bad factory owners’, who are supposedly trying to take advantage of the farmers – must absorb all the strain to keep the factory at its peak daily output to get that 1.2 million tonnes milled. To ensure that the farmers don’t lose as much money, they will try to push the mill to reach efficiency numbers higher than past years.
That, by all appearances seem to be good faith efforts from the millers to the factory owners who agreed that on the first day 6,000 tonnes will be the output, and then it will be increased marginally. The millers will keep the factory going all the way into June and July, assuming that the rains in those months do not impede the farmers from delivering their product.
