Former DPM Hugo Patt Says Do Away with Commercial Agreement

Also at Tuesday’s U.D.P. press conference, Area Representative for Corozal North Hugo Patt chimed in on the north’s biggest industry – sugar.  Speaking on the labor dispute between A.S.R./B.S.I. and B.S.C.F.A., Patt gave his opinion as a sugar cane farmer himself.  Patt is a member of the Northern Sugar Cane Growers Association and his association has an extended commercial agreement with the mill.  But Patt says if it was left to him, he would do away with the idea of a commercial agreement between farmers and millers.

Hugo Patt

Hugo Patt, Area Representative, Corozal North

“As a farmer if you were to ask me and if I had the option to negotiate, I would get away from this commercial agreement. I have said it. This commercial agreement has been there since 2001. We are in 2021 and the essence of that agreement has not changed. As a farmer, if you ask me, I would tell BSI look, do whatever you want with the cane. I want you to tell me how much it is you are going to pay me at the time that truck hits that scale. Tell me that I will get paid a dollar per ton. I have nothing to worry about what costs you incur at your mill. I have nothing to worry about what you will incur for transporting and processing that sugar. I have nothing to worry about storage. I have nothing to worry about transportation. I have nothing to worry about export. That is Hugo Patt, personally as a cane farmer. In my opinion, this is one of the root problems. This is where we have cane farmers finding ways into seeing how best they could get money.   I don’t think that the constant remaining, anything will change. It will become tenser as the weeks come to that closure. B.S.I. is saying I will defend that dollar for me, and the Association is saying look, I will defend that dollar for me.”