Sugar Season Delay: Blessing and Burden?

The delayed start to the sugar season is being felt sharply in the north, especially among the families of cane farmers who depend on December revenues to get through the holidays. Industry stakeholders say the delay is proving to be both a blessing and a burden. On one hand, a late start means a tough Christmas for families and businesses counting on early cash flow. On the other, farmers say the extra weeks could help weather-damaged fields bounce back and give the mill more time to finish maintenance. Today, the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association leaders told us the industry is simply not ready and that waiting a little longer may help both farmers and millers enter the season on stronger footing.

 

Alfredo Ortega, Vice-Chairman, Belize Sugarcane Farmers Association

“It’ll be a rough Christmas for the farmers, right? Not only for the farmers, but I think that the community at large, because once the crop start, even the businesses start to get some funds rolling or financial funds rolling.”

 

Salvador Martin, Chairman, Belize Sugarcane Farmers Association

“We have to acknowledge that at this time the crisis where we are suffering in the region as the farmers with the fusarium and the drought, the pests that’s been happening where we have to acknowledge that we are not ready for having a crop at this moment. And the weather, we have a bad weather at this moment, but probably by mid-January, like they say, we hopefully that everything might work better.”

 

 Shane Williams

“So you would say perhaps this delay in the start of the season will actually be a benefit to give time for the crop to mature a little bit more. Would that be right?”

 

Alfredo Ortega

“I think it’ll be a benefit I, it’ll be a benefit to both sides because we understand also that the mill is not ready at this point in time. So they’re still doing maintenance on the mill. So these, this situation right now is really giving opportunity to both sides, the farmers and the millers also for them to get the mill up and running for that time. And the farmers we’re to prepare ourselves for that time because as you know the third payment was not as, as good as the past crop or the crop before. But still yet the farmers are trying to survive and to see how best they can manage to plant some more cane. They’re replanting in some areas and the investment is more ongoing on the side of the farmers.”