It has indeed been a sweet sugar season for cane farmers as Belize Sugar Industries Limited (BSI) is reporting that sugar production this year was at an all-time high. Cane farmers now stand to receive almost 70 million dollars from the sale of sugar in the international market.
Original estimates had it that the price of sugar would have fetched $45 per ton and cane farmers received their first payment based on that estimate. That figure has now been updated and BSI is projecting that sugar will be sold at $63 dollars and potentially more. This translates to a massive windfall for cane farmers, who were expecting second payments, based on the original projection of $45. The payment structure for farmers is done in three payments with the first being 85% of the projected sugar price and is paid at the time of sugar cane delivery. The second payment which is 10% of what is owed to the farmers will come on the 25th of June. The third and final payment is made one month before the start of the crop.Â
At 7:00 pm, Saturday May 25th, the 2013 sugar cane crop came to a close. It was the second most successful crop in the history of BSI in terms of sugar production, second only to the 1995 crop of 123,000 tons. Total cane harvested was 1,078,000 long tons which yielded 118,339 long tons of sugar. The ratio of cane to sugar (TC/TS) was 9.11 which was an improvement over the 2012 crop.
The sugar industry noted significant improvement in performance after the Government brokered a Memorandum of Agreement in 2010 whereby all stakeholders agreed to delivery by appointment and a quality-based method of payment for sugar cane. It must be noted also that the sugar cane crop has never been completed before the end of May, even with lower cane production. So this year is being considered a very good season for all stakeholders.
