BSI unable to meet cane farmers’ 3rd payment deadline
Up north, there are more signs that the sugar industry is in trouble. Sugar production dropped significantly this year by twenty percent and it is not known when the next grinding season will start. On the financial side, the Social Security Board has just approved a loan of ten million dollars to the Belize Sugar Industries but the company remains cash strapped. A few days ago farmers were notified that they won’t be getting third payments in time. The farmers are irate because the payment, which is due the second Monday of November, is needed to cover bills and operational expenses. On October twenty-eighth the Belize Cane Farmers Association received a first letter stating that BSI might not be able to meet the November eighth deadline. That, according to the association’s new chairman, Alfredo Ortega, is simply the result of poor management.
Alfredo Ortega, Chairman, Committee of Management, BSCFA
alfredo ortega
“We sent them out a letter by the BSCFA, yesterday we had an emergency meeting with the administrative staff of BSI where they reiterated that they won’t be able to comply, per our agreement, for the eighth of November. According to them, they are seeking loans with S.S.B. according to them, it has been approved but they are working on logistics so that they can have hold of those funds. Without those funds, they won’t be able to pay the third payment to the cane farmers. But there is a great question that I have on my mind; our sugar has been sold already, they have used the money. And this brings us to a very bad position because I think that any organization, once you can handle your administrative machinery that means that you know that you have a certain timeline that you have to comply.
I received a letter from them this morning stating that yes; they won’t be able to meet, as per our agreement, the eighth of October. We know that in our side we have some problems and we admit it as farmers based on the quality of cane that was delivered. But I do believe that BSI has a role to play in this because for the first time in history, we have had a long crop of about nine months from December to the end of August and it was really bad for the farmers because the operation of the mill was not the way it was before. They were giving us per day between four thousand, five thousand, sometimes way down to one thousand five hundred and it was really bad for the cane farmers. So really and truly I think BSI should also take on their hands their responsibility in regards to how the crop went on for this year.”
The third payment will be among the topics up for discussion at BSCFA’s Annual General Meeting on November twenty-first.
The money WAS there, and now it’s not. Where did it go, and who has it today? Who will open the books and set things straight? It seems there were hands in this cookie jar, too.
Does not make sense. SSB pumps 10M into a sinking ship and no one complains, but to put 50M into a profitable company all the freaks come out. Also no one is saying it but this is exactly why the core sampler was necessary…. to improve quality. Now it has come back to haunt these farmers. Core Sampler Reloaded.
the loan from SSB was not taken because there was no collateral in place as yet.
and true, the core sampler was important to take the industry forward. all sugar factories the world over have a payment by quality method. if you go to buy a watermelon you check first with the little slice and wont buy if the melon is not of good quality. If the potato is rotten you wont buy. but if the cane has jon jo, the factory has to take it becasue the farmers will riot. This mold brings down the quality of the good cane from other farmers.
If the two political parties had the will, the farmers would have had to accept the new paradigm, but politics killed the quality initiative.
i dont want yu to take this thing lightly: if sugar goes down, so will a lot of businesses here in the North, and the rest of the country will feel it too. Sugar brings $100 million to the GDP of this country. Lets hope for the better, and stop pointing fingers. BSI is a national industry, 90% owned by Belizeans, through a trust deed, and by the GOB.
@Melinda. Very well said. I would definitely not want to see the Sugar industry go down as it would be a nightmare for the farmers, their families and the business who support them as you rightly say. From what I have been hearing on the news it appears the odds against them seem to be growing as external agencies demand higher quality while cutting prices.
I don’t think that their current path is sustainable… as in if the necessary changes are not made the industry will not be able compete on the world market.
Hit the nail dead center Bzeman and Melinda… Political interference in the sugar industry is waht is killing the goose that USED to lay the golden eggs….(sugar cane was once the “backbone” of the belizean economy) …. to that you have to add the innate ignorance of many of the cane farmers…..
Because of that ignorance they fall victim of the games of the politicians… BOTH BLUE AND RED…. Until the caniero wakes up to that reality it will be worse for them…
I hope they don’t reach to the point of the “desperate city poor” and start taking their shotguns to earn their living …. then Mose will be their advocate….. till then…..
that’s why my old man is tired of these mismanagement going on internally in the BSI company. Soon he’ll have to stop hot up his head with this people if this thing continues soon that factory will close or become a minor company in the country. I grew watching my old man working hard to keep up with the demands but the pay was always mishandle by the management since i was a child. now he keeps his cane plantation for the reason of having something to do not being bored at home but really those that depend on this business it’s really heartbreaking and my hopes are that this thing gets better for the benefit of those that have young families and are cane farmers, those that struggle every day with hardship getting up 5am to go cut cane and to load and come home dirty with cane juice stained clothes for the poor wife to wash while the management pockets the money not worring about these needed families. it’s really a shame.