Belize Eyes End to Cane Field Burning

Burning cane fields has long been part of Belize’s sugar industry, but is it time to put out the flames for good? Agriculture Minister Jose Abelardo Mai says yes, and he’s pointing to a future where burning is replaced by machines. While regulations already exist, Mai admits they’re not enforced. And with fewer people willing to take on the grueling work of cutting cane by hand, the shift toward mechanized harvesting is not just necessary, it’s inevitable. But here’s the bigger question: can Belize modernize its sugar industry while also turning environmental challenges into economic opportunities, like carbon credits? The answer, it seems, lies in how quickly the country can adapt.

 

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture

“There is a regulation for burning, you know. You should get a permit to burn and so on, but it’s not enforced. It’s not enforced. We need to, in the near future, move away from burning cane fields, but that will only happen when you start to mechanize the cane fields. Right now, this year, we found it difficult to find cane cutters and clearly you have to understand why. Cutting cane is an enslaving job, it’s almost inhumane. And so, people don’t want to cut cane anymore because they have a job to do somewhere else. And we are now, you are seeing farmers who are buying combine harvesters, they are starting to invest in combine harvesters and the government supports that because they need to get the cane harvested. When you have a hundred percent cane harvested mechanically, there is no need to burn. There is no need to burn. You can convert that, like I said before, to bio-char and collect carbon credits, sell it as carbon credits. So this, again, needs to be something that’s done in the near future.”