Sugar Industry Resolution is Critical as Crop is Set to Begin December 19th

Jose Abelardo Mai

The next few days are critical for the industry, as well as the start of the upcoming crop. Agriculture Minister Jose Abelardo Mai says that each day without a resolution, both the miller and the sugar cane farmers are losing. Minister Mai says that the entire northern economy would be affected if there is a delay in the start of the sugar crop.

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture, Food Security & Enterprise

“I don’t subscribe to the thought that B.S.I. has long pockets and that they can wait more than the farmer, I do not subscribe to that. B.S.I. is there to mill cane; B.S.I. is there to make money – every day that they are not working, they are not making money. Every day a farmer is not working, he is not making money. And so both of them have the same objective, they both want money. So I don’t subscribe to that notion that B.S.I. has longer pockets, they can wait. It is not like that. These people are in business to make money and so is the farmer. The farmer doesn’t work for charity; the farmer works because he has a family. He wants to make business so that he can send his kids to school. So both want the crop to start. I would say that the northern economy would be affected – the northern economy, not only the farmers, the business people who sell tacos, those who sell in the stores, the supermarkets, everybody. Not only the cane farmers or the associations, but the economy in the north as well.”