The impact of delayed start of sugar cane crop season

While BSCFA and B.S.I./ASR battle semantics, legalese and bagasse, the rains continue to pour down over the north of the country. Generally rain is a blessing where agriculture is concerned, but in this case, the old adage – too much of a good thing – is holding true. Unprecedented rains which show no signs of stopping have destroyed access roads and have negatively impacted the quality of cane which is ready to harvest. That’s no shortage of bad news, but Ortega says with all that they just need to get the season started before the losses mount.

Via Phone: Alfredo Ortega, Vice-Chairman, Committee of Management, BSCFA

Alfredo Ortega

“The condition with the sugar roads has worsened more because as you know we have been experiencing rain almost every day and it has worsened the situation as it was when you came and had a shot on it. If you had a chance to come back and see the same areas where you had those shots you would see how bad they are at this point. And the sucrose content on the cane remains the same because we have had a lot of rain in the last days.”

Reporter

“So is it unrealistic at this point to even, because we’re at the end of the year now, and I know to recover the sucrose content you’d need a full two weeks of dry. So is even January fifteenth looking a bit unrealistic right now?”

Via Phone: Alfredo Ortega

“Well it looks unrealistic right now, but I believe that if we can finalize our situation with B.S.I. we can make a start before the fifteenth because if we can start before the fifteenth, even though we would be experiencing some looses, they could be mitigated as the crop goes by.”

At news time tonight there was no response from B.S.I./ASR to the communication from the BSCFA. We’ll continue following this story in 2014.