Starting today, Belize Sugar Industries (BSI) is hitting the brakes on sugar production at the mill. This move comes as farmers and producers struggle with the muddy mess caused by heavy rains. The pause in production will continue until the weather improves, but there’s no clear end in sight. We spoke with BSI Communications Director William Neal to find out how this will affect the local sugar supply. Here’s what he had to say.
William Neal, Communications Director, B.S.I.
“Just based on what we’re looking at in terms of sugar production the domestic market is small. What we have concerns about is obviously, how we make, the sugars necessary for our contracts that we have. We, it’s still early in the crop. But what we have to do is make an assessment. We’ve talked about the cane price estimates, and we’ve looked at production shortfalls, but what we’re trying to do at this point is just decide what will be the best thing at this juncture to make sure that we’re not grinding just for grinding sake and that farmers are not trying to just pull out the cane to just say they delivered their cane if there’s no sugar in the cane, we’re wasting time, resources, money, and so are the farmers. So this is the best solution at this point we can’t project in the next six months, how much sugar we’ll have, what we’re hoping for is some improvement in the weather and we’ll continue to work on the mill side to try and extract as much sugar as we possibly can. More than sixty percent of the industry uses B79, which is a late maturing variety. So it might actually play to that in terms of the ripeness of cane and the optimum time to actually, have extraction. But if the weather continues to be like this, then it still won’t make much of a difference. If we have continuous rains, what we’re seeing as an industry is basically we cannot at this juncture continue to just hollow cane by any means necessary. It’s just not making any, since economically for anybody, because the amount of mud that comes, the quality of the cane is so poor that all around, it’s just a losing situation for everybody.”
We’ve been covering the tough road infrastructure challenges sugarcane farmers in the north are dealing with, but that’s not their only struggle. Prime Minister John Briceño pointed out that securing financing is a major hurdle for these farmers. He explained that they often must take out loans with interest rates as high as fourteen percent because it’s their only option. P.M. Briceño shared his plans to change this situation with reporters.
Prime Minister John Briceño
Prime Minister John Briceño
“One idea we have been playing with, and we have not fully worked it out, but there is a lot of liquidity in the system. One of the challenges our farmers have is the issue of financing. They get these one year financing loans from the bank and the interest rates are as much as fourteen percent. They are gouging them. So, every year they have to renew. When you run on the same spot or just going backwards, one idea we are looking at is providing the financing. The idea is to use this excess liquidity, pass it on to DFC, DFC could go to the farmer, I could go to DFC and say ok, I owe ten thousand dollars. We will pay of your ten thousand and another five thousand to rebuild, but then give you three, four years. At a lower interest rate, it gives them breathing space to rebuild their fields.”
The Briceño administration is pouring two million dollars into fixing the sugar roads up north. As we’ve reported, many of these roads are in terrible shape due to weeks of relentless rain. Repair work has already started, but the weather is still causing delays. Today, Prime Minister Briceño announced that, on top of the one million dollars already set aside for road repairs, the government has earmarked an additional one million dollars. Besides the awful road conditions, the quality of sugarcane has significantly deteriorated over the years, leading to a drop in sugar production. Here’s what the Prime Minister had to say about these issues.
Prime Minister John Briceño
Prime Minister John Briceño
“Yes we have the support of the cane farmers. We have done very well for them. If you remember, the previous government gave them four hundred thousand dollars. What we have done, we have signed a contract in December but we cant control the rain. It has been raining since October virtually nonstop. And, the only way we could fix these road is if it gets dry and we know that. But of course, there is impatience and I understand the impatience. What we have done is put another million on top of what we have signed. So, it is going to be two million. We have never put that kind of money and they know that and they are working with us. But even the factory is not going well for them because the cane has too much water. The content is so high. The ton of cane for a ton of sugar is way too high. Usually, we have about nine tons of cane for one ton of sugar. We are about eighteen tons of cane to one ton of sugar. The amount of mud that comes in is wrecking up the equipment of BSI. So maybe we should have held back a bit more for the conditions to change.”
On Monday, we shared how the recent downpours have thrown a wrench in the works for delivering quality sugarcane to the Tower Hill Factory. The fields are waterlogged, and the roads are a muddy mess, making them nearly impossible to navigate. The relentless rain has also stalled road repairs, leaving cane farmers no choice but to harvest immature cane, which unfortunately yields very little. However, Alfredo Ortega, Chairman of the Committee of Management for the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association, believes that with the right support, diversifying and planting different types of cane could help tackle the issues of flooding and disease.
Alfredo Ortega
Alfredo Ortega, Chairman, Committee of Management, B.S.C.F.A.
“Looking into variety, and that is something that we feel that SIRDI being the arm, needs to look upon varieties. I think that this is something that they really need to take into account on which we know that they have been working on it, but it needs much more to be done in regard to getting new varieties, but varieties that will really give us that return and yield that we need. The B79 is a predominant variety because that is a variety that shows that it can give good yields in both low and highlands. If we get a pest infestation on that variety, then we are really going to lose because as you hear right now, the Fusarium problem that we are facing, we are experiencing it now, that the farmers are delivering, we see the quality of cane, we are seeing the TCTS that is coming out is very low, compared to other years. This year is really challenging for us as farmers because the Fusarium not only attack one variety, but it’s attacking all canes on a whole. And we are seeing the problem that we are facing so farmers themselves have been trying to plant other varieties that are to harvest on the very early part of the season.”
Cane farmers are facing significant financial losses. When the mill must shut down due to a lack of cane to process, it hits the factory hard too. Mac McLachlan, the General Manager of the A.S.R/B.S.I. sugar mill, agrees that diversifying with different types of sugarcane could help solve some of the issues farmers are currently grappling with, like low yields and diseases. He points out that in other countries, cane farmers are already investing in various replanting strategies to tackle these challenges.
Mac McLachlan
Mac McLachlan, General Manager, A.S.R/B.S.I.
“Normally, a sugar industry would have a whole range of different varieties. Some of them would mature earlier, some of them would mature later, so that you end up having a higher amount of sugar across the whole range of the crop, but here it’s been because of the lack of serious replanting in cane fields. We’re predominantly one variety, and so that won’t actually reach full maturity for some time now. But you see if we all wait until the time is optimal to begin the crop, then as we’ve learned in recent years, later on in June, July, then we get into real problems and then that farmers are left without being able to deliver cane, which is even the worst situation.”
Repairs have started on the dirt roads in northern Belize that lead to the cane fields. Last week, the Corozal Sugarcane Producers Association raised concerns about the deteriorating roads, which have been made worse by constant rain, making it difficult for farmers to access their fields. This has led to a significant drop in the amount of sugarcane delivered to Tower Hill. To make matters worse, the poor quality of the harvested cane is producing less sugar, causing the mill to halt operations at times. This is problematic because the mill isn’t designed to stop during the cane season, and doing so can cause damage. News Five’s Marion Ali has more on this story.
Marion Ali, Reporting
Since last week, crews from the Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing have been hard at work fixing the badly damaged dirt roads in the Corozal and Orange Walk Districts that lead to the cane fields. The relentless rains over the past few weeks have made it tough for farmers to harvest their mature cane, and their heavy-duty equipment has only worsened the road conditions. Jose Majil, the chairman of the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association’s Corozal Branch, has been closely monitoring the situation.
Jose Majil
Jose Majil, Chairman, B.S.C.F.A, Corozal Branch
“Some farmers have big machinery, so they try to take out the product, but they are at the time, they’re hurting the roads too and the farmers that have small trucks, well they cannot pass.”
The farmers were forced to harvest the cane they can reach, but the crop is immature and that has also added to the problem, according to BSI’s General Manager, Mac McLoughlin.
Mac McLoughlin
Mac McLoughlin, General Manager, A.S.R./B.S.I
“We’re milling very, very poor-quality cane. So obviously that’s having an impact, and it will have an impact on the whole industry, because farmers are paid on the sugar that’s produced and for the mill. At this point, we’ve milled over seventy thousand tons of sugar cane. At this point last year, we’d only milled fifty-seven thousand tons because of the delays to the crop, because of one association, but this year, we’ve made three thousand three hundred tons of sugar. Last year, we made three thousand seven hundred tons, so we made more sugar with thirteen thousand tons less cane last year.”
With the rain finally letting up, crews from the Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing have been busy restoring the sugar roads in the north. Chief Engineer Evondale Moody reports that most of the work is now complete.
Evondale Moody
Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer, M.I.D.H
“In the Corozal District we have over two hundred and seventy miles of road and in the Orange Walk District we have about three hundred and fifteen miles of sugar roads. With the budget that we receive annually there’s no way that we could maintain all these roads continuously, especially when we have significant rainfall as what we’ve been having in this past year, 2024. However, we try our best to initiate the upgrading of these sugar roads, especially the main ones prior to the sugar cane season. So we started these roads in late November, early December once we had the funds available to commence these works.”
But the rain started again and interrupted the road works, until last week. Moody mentioned that during this period, the farmers’ heavy equipment further damaged the roadworks, making the situation even worse.
Evondale Moody
“Some of the cane fields are wet but you still have those trucks going into the cane fields and bringing out that contaminated material onto the road. Please bear in mind that these roads are not paved roads, they’re gravel roads and once that gravel gets contaminated it creates another problem for us because we still need to go back and do the same thing again to address that.”
The cane fields in the north are mostly lowlands, about eighty percent, with only twenty percent being highlands. Alfredo Ortega, Chairman of the Committee of Management for the B.S.C.F.A Orange Walk Branch, suggests that the mill should consider shortening the harvest period to avoid the rainy season.
Alfredo Ortega
Alfredo Ortega, Chairman, Committee of Management, B.S.C.F.A, Orange Walk Branch
“We have been trying to do what we can, but nevertheless, climate change is one of the issues that is affecting us now, left, right and center because the amount of rain that we are getting now is much more than any other given year. Starting one day, two days after Christmas, many of the cutters – because we rely on the manpower – many of them are still in the party mood and that is why we’re telling them that they delay so that whenever we start in January, then we have a better flow of cane being delivered to the mill.”
However, McCloughlin argues that climate change has blurred the lines between rainy and dry seasons. He emphasizes that making better investments is crucial for successful crops, just like in other sugar-producing countries.
Mac McLoughlin
“All four cane farmer associations and the mill agreed to start when we started, as that if we start earlier, albeit a little bit wet sometimes, it’s better than ending in the rain. You have upland fields, you have lower land fields, there needs to be effective drainage in fields. You know, you need to have better water management, you need to have investment, you’ve got to have investment in the cane farm. Really, we have to change the whole structure, I think, of the way the cane industry works here because we’re seeing, year by year, more of a deterioration in the cane crop, both the yields and the quality.”
There’s no estimate yet on the losses for this sugar crop due to the delays, but cane farmers are hopeful that they can make up for lost time if the weather stays dry. Marion Ali for News Five.
The Commission of Inquiry’s report on Belize’s sugar industry, completed at the end of November 2024, is still under wraps. The commission handed the report to the prime minister, who will decide when to share it with the public. Mac McLoughlin, General Manager of A.S.R/B.S.I, hinted that a sneak peek at the documents shows many of the sugar factory’s recommendations were included. Meanwhile, Alfredo Ortega from the B.S.C.F.A. mentioned that they are eagerly waiting to see what the report contains.
Mac McLoughlin
Mac McLoughlin, General Manager, A.S.R/B.S.I
“What we’ve seen so far, I mean, it really just tells us what we were expecting, which is that we really need to concentrate on modernizing and improving the productivity and quality in the cane farm, you know. I think the commission will be recommending a number of things, including quality testing and improved quality testing of cane in the future. Increasing, amounts of replanting of cane because these things are not rocket science. This is what any modern industry has to do, and I assume it will be talking about finding funding for, for farmers to be able to achieve that because that’s what’s required, that we need investment in the cane farm. The factory has had a lot of investment in it and I think if we can get to the right quality levels, we can prove what our industry here can achieve.”
Alfredo Ortega
Alfredo Ortega, Chairman, Committee of Management, B.S.C.F.A, Orange Walk Branch
“The Prime Minister said that report will give an opportunity to better off the Sugar Industry Act. So we are waiting on that so that we can also have our start the negotiation with BSI in regards to our agreement based on what the Commission brings out.”
Meanwhile, the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association is turning to the courts over the issue of Fairtrade premiums, aiming to reclaim what they believe is rightfully theirs. The association claims they haven’t received the appropriate Fairtrade payments for several years and is seeking a resolution to the dispute with the involved sugar companies, ASR/BSI and Tate and Lyle. Alfredo Ortega shared how much they’re looking forward to collecting, while Mac McLoughlin pointed out that the association’s issue is actually with their parent company, Tate and Lyle.
Alfredo Ortega
Alfredo Ortega, Chairman, Committee of Management, B.S.C.F.A, Orange Walk Branch
“For the past two years now, we can see three years we have not. The B-S-C-F-E has not been getting any premium in regards to our can being delivered to the mill. And we, in regards to the regulations, we comply with the regulation. We have our certification. We are not suspended. We passed the audit that has been done to us and nevertheless, we have not been getting our premium from since 2021. So, we are awaiting that, um, we were trying to negotiate that with BSIT and like, but it came out futile. We didn’t went through to nothing. So that is why we have it in court now. We are expecting that, um, something positive come out of that.”
Marion Ali
“How much are you expecting out of this premium?”
Alfredo Ortega
“Well, every year it’s in the vicinity of three million, three point five million, depending on the amount of sugar being sold on the Fairtrade certification. So, it’s two years that we have and plus this past crop that we have not got nothing. So, if we include all three.”
Mac McLoughlin
Mac McLoughlin, General Manager, A.S.R/B.S.I
“Fair trade is between, you know, the associations and Tate and Lyle Sugars, which is the body that sells the fair-trade sugar and pays the farmers for it. So it’s really nothing to do with BSI.”
Marion Ali
“The farmers tend to disagree with you on that.”
Mac McLoughlin
“Well, it’s the truth. I mean, we don’t sell fairtrade. Well, we sell sugar that’s Fairtrade eligible, but we don’t actually market the sugar as Fairtrade. And, back to when Fairtrade started, it was long before ASR arrived in Belize. I think it was 2008. It’s always been Tate and Lyle paying the farmers the premiums.”
Residents are also worried about potential health risks from the tower’s radiation, concerns supported by respected environmental research from the US and other countries, including the National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Health.
Waluco Maheia
Waluco Maheia, Chairman, Cattle Landing Village
“We found out that a few villagers were not in consent or not in support of the current location for the cell tower and a lot of the concerns are around the health hazard of the cell towers. A lot of the concerns are, yes, the health impacts that could affect villagers. So that is the main concern around where the current location of the tower is situated. We had agreed to have a follow-up consultation with representation from Digi within this month of January. One of the villagers, the individual, I believe, who is progressing with the petition, we encourage that he exercises his right to go out and find out who is in support or not in support of the cell tower. We did encourage him to go and do the petition and the petition has been submitted and it is an eye opener for us. It is something that the village council will be following up on and we still plan on having that consultation with BTL and Digi with the community. And more so, to educate about how a cell tower works, what can be the impacts. As far as self-education that I’ve done, cell towers, like your cell phone and internet modem within your home fall under what we call non-ionizing radiation, meaning that it only produces heat, but not enough energy to damage human cells. So it is in the realm of the non-ionizing radiation, unlike ionizing radiation which produces more of like the gamma rays and heavier radiation.”
People in Cattle Landing have heard from their neighbors in San Jose and Emeri Grove that Digi plans to install cell towers in their communities too, but those towers will be placed more than half a mile away from the nearest homes. This distance is well beyond the recommended safe distance of 500 meters to avoid potential harmful radiation effects.
Farmers in San Carlos Village, Orange Walk, are feeling the frustration as they struggle to sell their produce at a fair price. Several farmers have planted thousands of dollars’ worth of carrots, ready for harvest and sale. However, they claim that competition from other carrots on the market and a lack of interested buyers have left their crops rotting in the ground. Today, News Five’s Britney Gordon visited some of these farmers to hear their pleas for government intervention.
Britney Gordon, Reporting
What you’re seeing is a carrot field on two hundred acres of farmland. It belongs to Ruben Perez, a farmer from San Carlos. In about two weeks, his carrots will start to rot. They’ve been ready for sale since December, but Perez says there haven’t been any buyers.
Ruben Perez
Ruben Perez, Carrot Farmer
“The problem we have right with carrots is that we cannot sell. We have problem with selling carrots. We don’t have buyers and we are ready from first week of December. That’s one month now. And the problem is that we call the buyers who import the Mexican carrots and now when we call them, some of them say, we can’t sell too much, we just could sell lee bit. And they are big importers of Mexican product and now when we have the local product, now they don’t want a lot and I don’t understand why.”
Farmers are saying their carrots aren’t selling because of competition from both imported and contraband carrots. However, Minister of Agriculture Jose Abelardo Mai clarified that Belize doesn’t import carrots when there’s enough local supply to meet demand. He insists that this issue is just a political ploy, a tactic used by several political figures in the past.
Jose Abelardo Mai
Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture
“Carrots is a bad topic to use for political mileage. That’s primary school politics. Tracy tried it, she failed. Shyne tried it, and he also failed. This is a matter of supply and demand. The Ministry if Agriculture has never and will never issue importation of carrot permits when we are harvesting carrots, when our farmers are. That is a fundamental rule in the Ministry of Agriculture. That will not happen. As to contraband. The Ministry of Agriculture does not control contraband. We try to work with customs, immigration, military customs, quarantine, Baha. But we have porous borders, but up to now, we haven’t seen enough evidence of illegal importation of carrots because the quality is known.”
He also pointed out that part of the problem is the short shelf life of carrots, which makes it even harder to sell them quickly.
Jose Abelardo Mai,
“What we have is a problem we have every year with carrots. We have ninety acres planted in the country right now. Fifty acres is planted in the Cayo District, and twenty-five in Orange Walk. Another five or six acres in Corozal, another six acres in Stann Creek. Alright? The problem is that the carrots seem to come into maturity all at one time. Why? Because it’s seasonal. So everybody brought it at the same time. Secondly, carrots have zero shelf life.”
Cornelius Schmidt shared that it takes about one hundred and twenty days for carrots to be ready for harvest. If they stay in the ground any longer, they risk rotting.
Cornelius Schmidt
Cornelius Schmidt, Farmer
“What we have here once its beginning to brown like we have no then its ready to harvest.”
Perez is puzzled about why importers are hesitant to buy local carrots. He suspects that the wax coating on imported carrots makes them more attractive to buyers. With about fifteen thousand dollars invested in this year’s carrot crop, Perez fears this challenge could spell trouble for the future of his farming career.
Ruben Perez
“They need the pressure of the Minister of Agriculture because I could see how if they buy forty thousand pounds when they are importing they buy that weekly. That amount. And now that we have they can’t buy the same amount and that’s why I call the news that they could help us and we are here to tell the Minster of Agriculture, the Prime Minister too to make them help us. Because this is our job that we do and we depend in totality in this work.”
This is an issue that the Ministry of Agriculture acknowledges and has been attempted to rectify.
Jose Abelardo Mai
“We encourage them to buy from the local producer. So we said to them, if you want to continue importing, if you want to continue benefiting from your farmers, you need to buy our local products. Okay? So right now, yesterday I sat down with the government, issues, governments, and we’re reviewing analysis. And if they can’t prove to us that they are supporting our farmers, we will have to put the brakes on them. And I said that to them in no way, we will allow them to continue importing if they do not buy from our local farmers. I’m sorry.”
Just a short distance from Perez’s farm, another farmer is anxiously waiting to harvest about eight million dollars’ worth of potatoes. He’s worried that he might face the same challenges when it comes time to sell. Minister Mai has tried to reassure farmers, stating that there are no active licenses for potato imports. However, despite the Ministry’s assurances, local farmers say they haven’t received any government assistance and are uncertain about their next steps. UDP Standard Bearer for Orange Walk South claims that several farmers are hesitant to speak out, fearing persecution.
German Tillett
German Tillett, U.D.P. Standard Bearer, Orange Walk South
“I was speaking and I was telling them, convincing then to come up. To step up and give their interview about what is really happening with their crops and everything but they always say that they are afraid, so that whenever help comes, the little help that comes, they will not be able to get that. Because they come out and say what is happening. But what I usually tell them is that should not be afard because the help comes to everyone, to every farmer and if you get victimized by this government that means that something is really wrong..”
Minister Mai is optimistic that the demand for carrots will pick up within the next two weeks. Looking ahead, he revealed that the ministry has big plans to industrialize the sector over the next five years by setting up an agro-processing facility in Orange Walk. This move aims to add value to Belize’s local crops and boost the agricultural industry. Britney Gordon for News Five.
