B.S.I Officials Meet with Government Officials

The B.S.C.F.A has basically drawn a line in the sand and one of the messages being sent is that while the majority of its members have not delivered cane, it has also said that it won’t allow anyone else to deliver cane to the sugar mill until all their demands are addressed. Chavarria says that aside from the N.T.U.C.B., it has been in meetings with government officials over the matter as well. B.S.I’s Cane Farmers’ Relations Manager, Olivia Carballo Avilez addressed the issue of how the delivery of cane has been going from the other associations since the December twenty-eighth opening.

Shawn Chavarria

Shawn Chavarria, Director of Finance, A.S.R/B.S.I.

“Our main point of contact has been our country manager, Mac McLaughlin, and so the prime minister, in particular, has been in direct communication with Mac. Mac is obviously supported by the A.S.R executive, along with the local management team, which includes myself. So we have all been participating in the discussions; we’ve been having meetings and calls to review the latest proposals at different points during the past week. We thought we had an agreement, that we had arrived at a compromise with the B.S.C.F.A., as highlighted in our press release. We understood that there were a couple of points of contention, one related to the commission of inquiry and we agreed to incorporate language in a commercial agreement that the parties – if there is recommendations that comes out of the commission of inquiry that are mutually beneficial and the parties agree – those could be incorporated. We also understood that another sticking point was the term of the agreement, and so there was a provision to look at the terms of the two-year mark, and if there’s any changes, those could be brought to the forefront, but if the parties could not agree for the two-year anniversary, then the agreement would roll over for a third year and discussions can continue. So we thought that that would have been able to get an agreement over the line, but it didn’t at the end of the day.”

Olivia Carballo Avliez

Olivia Carballo Avliez, Cane Farmers’ Relations Manager, ASR/B.S.I.

“The mill has a capacity of 7,000 tons a day more or less, however, we are just on one boiler, which means we have half the capacity and we have been getting cane from all four associations. Yesterday we got about 3,500, which was really good. The weather has been good after the pause. We had to pause due to weather conditions over the weekend. The associations are providing jobs to cane cutters. We will have a big issue this year with cane cutters since we have a limited amount of them and we understand that they really want to start the crop and move forward. So we definitely are milling. Our operations are proceeding at this time and we hope that the associations’ members are not prevented from delivering their cane. They have a valid commercial agreement since 2021 and they have been delivering. I understand they have sent a letter to the B.S.C.F.A, asking them to ensure that their trucks are able to pass through.”