Cane farmers strike continues in Orange Walk
There is still no resolution tonight to a strike in the north where cane farmers are facing lower prices for cane delivered to the B.S.I. Sugar Factory in Tower Hill. The usually long delivery lines did not form and farmers kept away for the most part. All day farmers were asked through the media not to deliver their crops and by this afternoon, a meeting convened between Belmopan and the Sugar Cane Farmers Association on behalf of the six thousand farmers did not go well. Another is planned tonight with the Belize Sugar Control Board which will define the next step. The problem has to do with the core sampler, a piece of equipment that is used to test the quality of cane delivered to the mill. Duane Moody was in sugar city today and has this report.
Duane Moody, Reporting
This is day two of the strike but trouble was brewing for some time and yesterday when cane farmers of the Corozal and Orange Walk Districts got their bank slips the bubble burst. The harvest is only in its seventh week and the strike is threatening to paralyze the industry. The farmers say they are fetching less prices for their yield and that the overwhelming majority, they have not agreed to the new system.
Loila Cineros, Cane Farmer
“I as a cane farmer, I asked and plead to the representatives to speak on this cane situation. It is not only the cane farmers that are going to be affected by this. They, the sugar board, B.S.I., depend on the cane harvested from the north. So we all will be affected by this and for that reason I am pleading that a quick solution be devised for this problem.”
Onorio Aban, Cane Farmer
“We will keep on fighting because we don’t want the core sampler. We agree with the cane farmers, we are striking because we do not sit well with them paying us for quality. It is not a convenience for me to have a restriction on my crop. Because it will kill the small cane farmers and we are not prepared for the core sampler.”
Ramon Aban, Representative, Corozal Cane Farmers
“We, the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association did not ask the cane farmers to go to core sampler but the Belize Sugar Cane Growers Association implemented that anyone who would like to voluntary sign, can.”
The Core Sampler the farmers are referring to is a system that has been in testing since 2007 and was implemented January first of this year by the B.S.I. and Sugar Industry Control Board, which is used to determine the quality of cane and thus the price to be paid. C.E.O. of the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association, Carlos Magana, says the Association is behind the farmers.
Carlos Magana, C.E.O., Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association
“The cane farmers are definitely not happy with the cane payment systems, by the usage of the core sampler. They have requested that it be suspended. The administration is hundred percent in support of the request by the farmers. No, they are not in anyway doing anything wrong. They asked them to volunteer and they did it. But what has happened is that there is two many fluctuation between one payment and the other and we can say that it is because a can field is being burnt. From that same cane field a truck may be paid forty or forty-two dollars per ton in that truck and from that same cane field the other truck might get six or seven dollars less and that is what really has affected the cane farmers. And that is why we, the administration, has pointed out that there are certain things we believe that are not done in the correct manner.”
In December of last year, the cost paid per ton of cane decreased from fifty-two dollars to a maximum of forty-six dollars. And now some farmers are receiving under twenty dollars per ton.
Ramon Aban
“We know that our cane farmers are suffering. We know that core sampler is a good thing but what is happening is our cane farmers are not prepared in the cane fields for doing this. So in the meantime, the core sampler is implemented but we are seeing that our cane farmers are receiving fourteen dollars, twenty dollars, twenty-six dollars; half of the payment. So how is that a can farmer could live if I am traveling from Corozal to bring our cane and they are charging twenty-seven dollars for cutting and loading and transporting and I am receiving twenty dollars. How you think I could survive? I owe the bank, eighteen percent of a can farmer owes the bank. So how I could live if the bank charge me ten dollars, the association three; that’s thirteen dollars and I only receive twenty-six dollars or fourteen dollars or nineteen dollars, how I could survive? So if I cut my cane and bring it I would like to inform all can farmers and all Belize that in the same cane field that we are cutting the cane, we are taking out cane that sometimes it’s twenty-six dollars, sometimes it’s thirty-eight dollars, sometimes it’s twenty-four dollars. How is it that in the same cane field I could deliver and the cane payments have variations.”
The Association is asking the S.I.C.B. to suspend the usage of the Core Sampler. Magana says the implementation of the system is effective, but until the necessary fine tuning measures are in place, cane farmers should not be subjected to it.
Duane Moody
“So you would like them to suspended so that the cane farmers can be more abreast of what the situation is and what they’re getting themselves into?”
Carlos Magana
“Definitely, it needs to be suspended. It needs to be suspended because if it continues in this manner there will be many farmers at the end of this crop who are going to lose their assets and that is going to be detrimental for the production sector.”
Hernan Vias, Cane Farmer
“All we want is for everyone to benefit and that they get the best price. All we are asking is that in return they provide quality cane. With quality you will get good prices. We had a meeting the other day with the Honorable Nemencio and he said he cannot do anything because it is in the act. That there is a cane quality that is set and he can’t do anything, that we have to take it to the meeting with the minister. And I already told the C.E.O that we will get the same response that Mr. Nemencio gave us.”
Duane Moody
“Who are the parties that are involved in this decision sir?”
Carlos Magana
“Okay, the main is the Sugar Industries Control Board. We have already stated our position to the board, the chairman of the board who is the Honourable Nemencio Acosta, he has negated or the board has said no to the request of the farmers. That is why—when they said no, that is why then the farmers took this action that they are taking and the administration is supporting their act. I don’t think that the government should be fighting against one of the biggest industries in the agricultural sector.”
Duane Moody, for News Five.
According to the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association, if use of the core sampler continues, the strike will also go on.
