Record cane harvest but production and revenues fall

Over the weekend, the Tower Hill Factory processed the last of the season’s cane and officials of Belize Sugar Industries report that while the crop was the largest in history, both sugar production and revenues were well below last year’s figures. The provisional numbers as reported by B.S.I. general manager Joey Montalvo show that cane deliveries reached a record one million, one hundred sixty thousand long tons, and that cane was then processed into one hundred, eighteen thousand tons of sugar. Interestingly, last year’s crop, which was twenty six thousand tons smaller than this year’s, managed to yield almost six thousand tons more sugar. The reason, according to B.S.I. officials, is that cane quality this year was much lower than in 1997. This was due to less favorable climatic conditions during the season as well as increased deliveries of stale cane which had been left too long between cutting and processing. On the revenue side total receipts reached ninety two point six million Belize dollars, well below last year’s total of over one hundred and four million. Factors behind the almost twelve million dollar decline include lower production, a general drop in world market prices, a lower U.S. sugar quota and currency losses on deliveries to Europe caused by a strong British pound. Out of eighty two point five million Belize dollars in current sugar export sales, over fifty four million came from the European Union under a concessional quota.