Terrible Sugar Roads: A Consistent Setback to Sugar Production  

Belize’s sugar roads are in terrible condition, according to cane farmers across Northern Belize who are struggling to make their deliveries. Today, the 2024-2025 crop season finally kicked off, sixteen days later than planned, mainly due to the poor state of the roads. Belize Sugar Industries’ Financial Director, Shawn Chavarria, shared that this has been a long-standing issue for the industry, making it difficult for farmers to get their cane to the sugar producers.

 

Shawn Chavarria, Financial Director, B.S.I.

“I think it’s really, a long term failure  that has been occurring with respect to Sugar Roads. Infrastructure is critical for any sector, any industry, especially ours, which requires transportation of their raw material to the mill. And so without the proper infrastructure, it’s difficult for us to be able to make a good start. And we’ve seen that. We have proposed to start the crop on the sixteenth of December of December. Farmers, I said, look, I am willing to start, but I can’t get to my fields. And so that has set, that’s about two weeks. But the state of the roads is not one that just occurred this year, or the year before. It’s been successive years of inadequate maintenance and repairs to these sugar roads for a critical industry. It’s still one of the largest agricultural industries in Belize. It’s the highest contributor to GDP from the agricultural sector, bringing the highest level of foreign exchange. I think a long-term solution really needs to be put in place to address the matter of sugar roads because now it’s costing us money because it’s delaying the start. If we have to push the crop into the rainy season, it will cost the industry to lower cane quality and less recovery of sugar. So really, we need a long term solution for the matter of sugar roots so that, we remove one obstacle that we have.”