B.S.C.F.A. Says Sugar Cane Delivered to Tower Hill is Not Owned by B.S.I.

Javier Keme

Earlier in our newscast, the B.S.C.F.A. spoke about an agreement which B.S.I. is trying to sell to farmers. There are five critical points in that agreement which has raised the ire of the B.S.C.F.A. and which the Association refuses to accept. Primary among those is an assertion by B.S.I. that once the cane is delivered to the factory it becomes the ownership of the mill. Currently, after marketing costs are deducted, the profits are shared sixty-five percent to thirty-five percent. This is one point from which the Association will not budge.

Javier Keme, Chairman, Finance Committee, BSCFA

“In this new proposal of BSI they are coming forward with a claim that they are purchasers of our cane. Hence they want us to relinquish the right of being partners in the whole process of the marketing by relinquishing the ownership of the cane when our product is weighed at the scales at the entrance of the mill. Ladies and gentlemen, this is something blatantly offensive in our case because of two reasons. They want us to relinquish the ownership of our cane even before we get our first interim payment for our product. We get our first payment one week after we deliver our cane. They want us to relinquish that ownership one week before. Secondly, we think and we are sure as farmers that we have been partners for decades because in the current system that we are operating we share not only the profits and the incomes and the benefits, we also share the costs and the losses in the marketing. Thirdly, the mere fact that we give our product on credit…if that is BSI’s interpretation of purchase, the mere sense of giving our product as credit gives us to the right to claim co-ownership up to the end of the commercialization of our sugar.”