B.S.I. general mgr. calls for sugar reforms

The sugar industry is facing some major challenges and no less than the general manager of Belize Sugar Industries has called for serious changes in the way that crucial commodity is produced. Writing in today’s Belize Times, B.S.I.’s Joey Montalvo warned that dwindling supplies of cane threaten to cripple and destroy the industry, unless measures can be adopted to reverse the trend. Among the reforms advocated by Montalvo is the acceleration of efforts to modernise the cane supply system and allow bona fide farmers to increase production. This would include permission for B.S.I. to grow some cane of its own and allow the factory to accept as much as one point three million tons. That’s the throughput needed for Tower Hill to break even at current prices. Montalvo estimates that B.S.I., which lost one point six million dollars last year, will lose over six million in 2001.