Millions of Dollars in Losses as Sugar Cane Production to Drop by 30%

January fifteenth – that’s the date when the mills at the A.S.R./B.S.I. factory in Tower Hill, Orange Walk will crank up.  This afternoon, a meeting was held between representatives from the millers and four cane farmers association in the north where the start date for the 2019/2020 crop season was finally determined. But even as an agreement has been reached, the delay in the start of the season due to last year’s prolonged drought is having an adverse effect on the industry. The projection is that production will be down by an estimated thirty percent, which means that approximately one million tonnes of sugar cane will be milled; that’s three hundred thousand tonnes less than last year’s production. The decline in production is a loss in the millions of dollars. Following today’s scheduled meeting, A.S.R./B.S.I.’s Manager of Cane Farmers Relations, Olivia Avilez spoke with News Five. She says that even though the forecast is for a low production and low cane quality year, the industry stakeholders are going to make the best of it.

On the Phone: Olivia Avilez, Manager, Cane Farmers Relations, B.S.I.

“The entire industry is under an impact of severe drought and stakeholders had to make a decision to start a little bit later because we didn’t have sufficient cane that would be ready or of good quality to start the crop season. So we did meet in November and we had to make that tough decision, but here we are. We are going to start even though we forecast a low production year and a low cane quality year; we are going to work hard to get this season as successful as it can be. The production has dropped from the one point three one seven million tonnes of cane that we had last year to an estimated production of one million tonnes of cane and so you have a thirty percent drop in everything. The farmers are optimistic with what we have we are able to start the crop season now.”