Climate Change Centre’s $50 Million Intervention in Sugar Industry

Climate change is hitting Belize’s sugar industry harder than ever, and cane farmers in the north are feeling the squeeze as droughts and erratic rainfall cut into their livelihoods. Now, a major fifty‑million‑dollar climate resilience project is rolling out, and tonight the region’s top climate officials say it could be a lifeline, bringing smarter farming practices, stronger seed varieties and direct support to help growers weather the next big environmental shock.

 

Dr. Colin Young, Executive Director, CARICOM Climate Change Center

“So as part of the projects we have right now is a fifty-million-dollar project that is focusing on building the resiliency of sugar cane farmers in Northern Belize. They’re saying the effects of climate change are having a devastating impact on that industry, which is a lifeblood of the Belizean economy and directly impacts over five thousand farmers and their families in the north. And so through our Green Climate Fund investment, we’re looking at replanting new varieties of sugar cane. We are looking at assisting the farmers with land management techniques and providing seed cane for the farmers to replant their fields, capacity building and also grants that they can help use if they were to abide by certain land management technique. When you look at the projection Shane, the air is going to get even more dry and the rain is gonna become more and more unpredictable. And so what this investment is trying to do is to ensure that the systems are built to help to minimize the shocks from those system in that particular industry.”

 

Dr. Osmond Martinez, Minister of State, Economic Transformation

“That again is testament of the capacity that Belize has now to be able to mobilize climate finance, which is a grant. And with that grant now we will be able to rejuvenate the fields that needs to be retired. In addition to that, it will help us to move into more of a mechanized system with irrigation systems in place and systems that can help us to move away from the traditional harvesting into a mechanized system with irrigation systems in place.”

 

As climate threats intensify, officials say this fifty‑million‑dollar investment is designed to help cane farmers replant, modernize and adapt, so the industry can withstand the harsher, drier years still ahead.