Sugar Crop Opens on Monday

The country’s sugar factory is set to open on Monday, following work done on key sugar roads and the signing of an agreement between the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association (BSCFA) and Belize Sugar Industries (BSI).

Prime Minister John Briceño said the government has invested about $2 million in cane road repairs. “Is it enough? No. There’s more to do? Yes, but the rains have not stopped,” he said.

He also pointed to last year’s bleak outlook, when the government invested $3 million to combat fusarium disease in cane fields. That intervention, he said, is now showing results. “It seems that this year the productivity and the quality of the cane has improved,” he said.

Minister of Economic Development Osmond Martinez also told News Five earlier this month that through the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, $50 million will be invested into the sugar industry. According to him, the grant from the “Green Climate Fund will allow us to retire old cane and replant about 10,000 acres.”