New culture, no politics are keys to reform

But even as far back as sugar’s glory days in the early seventies authoritative voices were calling for reforms in the industry. According to Minister of Agriculture, Servulo Baeza, there were two main reasons for the lack of action.

Servulo Baeza, Min. of Agriculture

?The complacency of saying, well you know this thing will come, it isn?t here yet and we can still continue doing the things the same old way that we used to… Even in a sort of a cultural way of life of our farmers in Corozal and Orange Walk. And secondly, the political aspect of the whole sugar industry, how it has been run basically, that it has become really politicised that we no longer look at it as a business venture, but we tend to make decisions based on politics and not as a decision based on good business practices. Until now that we see that it has been very?the threats are so close now that we can actually feel them, now we find out that farmers and everybody now can feel, now we have to stop talking politics, we have to make this a business. And that is where, even myself, put myself in that position because we need to make hard decisions. As a politician that might make me unpopular, but I believe that the sugar industry and the livelihood of the people in Corozal and Orange Walk are much more important and I am willing to stake, probably my political career in terms of trying to make sure that we make those right decisions so that we can have a viable sugar industry.?

Other potentially positive developments for the industry are the construction of deepwater shipping facilities in conjunction with the new Carnival Cruise port and B.S.I.’s co-generation project to produce electricity from the cane waste known as bagasse.