Minister Mai: “The Mill has Not Closed Because of Sugar Roads”

On Wednesday night, the Belize Sugar Industries (BSI) reported that it is temporarily halting sugar production for the 2024-2025 crop season due to poor-quality sugarcane caused by heavy rains. To compound this, the poor road conditions have further exacerbated the situation.

This morning, Minister of Agriculture Jose Abelardo Mai clarified during his appearance on Open Your Eyes that the mill’s closure is due to insufficient cane reaching the mill, not the state of the sugar roads, and called it a “political mischief.”

He explained that excessive rainfall has left fields waterlogged, leading to poor cane quality.

“The mill has not closed because of the sugar roads; the mill has closed because of insufficient cane reaching the mill. The fields are excessively wet. The quality of the cane is horrible. The mill will run out of bagasse—reserved bagasse—they burn bagasse to generate energy,” Mai said.

With the mill running out of reserve bagasse, the mill “will be forced to close down,” he said, which will “put at risk the entire sugar industry crop for the year 2025.”

Mai added that the sugar roads are being continuously worked on, but unpredictable weather conditions make maintenance difficult. He said, “Climate change is putting a serious beating on the industry.” Given the challenging conditions, he said it was in the best interest of all parties—the cane farmer, the sugar mill, and the government—to halt the season and wait for better weather to resume production.

He also projected this year to be “a very bad year for the cane farmers,” stating that the compounding affecting sugarcane quality also includes the current Fusarium fungal disease affecting sugarcane fields.