Orange Walk Town,
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
The Editor, Amandala,
I read with great enthusiasm and interest, your editorial in last week’s AMANDALA, the essay entitled, “Last bastion for small farmer heroes faces death blow from Fusarium.” For the wider readership, “bastion” is a stronghold or “last hope”, while “Fusarium” refers to a large fungal disease that destroys plants by blocking water movement through their tissue, which has become increasingly problematic, as it affects farm operations of all scales.
Your editorial is right on target. Our sugar industry is heading towards a spiraling downfall. Our industry is now facing total collapse, and our caneros now have to brace themselves for more difficult times ahead to meet their debt obligations to the financial institutions and, even more so, to ensure that their families are well taken care of with their daily bread and the educational needs of their loved ones.
It is quite disheartening to realize that, here in the north, three of four of our elected area representatives are cane farmers, namely Prime Minister John Briceño, Hon. Abelardo Mai and Hon Ramon Cervantes—a stellar record and more than there have been in any UDP government. These elected officials (who in some cases have been in Parliament since 1984), should, by their very own involvement in this lucrative industry, be injecting the much needed adrenalin to protect and strengthen the sugar-producing mill at BSI since they took office in 2020.
According to the editorial, “Last year, after considerable effort, the government got ASR-BSI to be a part of a ‘Commission of Inquiry’ that had the mandate ‘to examine the sugar cane industry’s whole value chain’ , and with high hopes, the farmers returned to the fields, confident in the future of the industry. They had extra reason to be confident, since the price of sugar on the world market last year was one of the highest ever. Then, just in a few months, the industry went from booming to reeling. ”
The editorial went on to mention pertinently that, “The UDP’s Guardian says Mai was sleeping at his desk when the disease was first observed in October 2023, and that if [he] had acted promptly, the industry wouldn’t be in the ‘monumental crisis’ it is presently. The Guardian said Mai announced that he had ‘secured funding to assist farmers for them to be able to spray fungicide in their fields,’ and that, had that measure been implemented earlier, ‘the detrimental effects of the fungus would not have been as profound.’”
Which leads me to ask the downright question: What was this “critical” meeting about between Prime Minister John Briceño and top executives of ASR in February this year in Miami? And, if it’s anybody’s wonder or guess, why did PM Briceno take direct control of our sugar industry, and assign the portfolio to Minister of State, Dr. Osmond Martinez? According to PM Briceño, appearing on Channel 5’s Open Your Eyes on Thursday, March 20, 2025, the decision came as the industry faced increasing tensions and unresolved issues between the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association and the ASR/BSI sugar mill.
“I had to do, literally, an emergency trip to meet the owners and managers of ASR because they had some serious concerns in Belize on the way the sugar industry was being managed and the challenges they were facing,” PM Briceño explained. “So now, sugar is directly under me, and I’m asking Dr. Martinez, as the Minister of State in Economic Development, to look into it on a day-to-day basis,” he said.
This decision by PM Briceño has sparked unease among caneros here in the north and their representatives in the associations, who view the shift by PM Briceño as a potential weakening of their role in industry decisions. There are also broader concerns about the implications of PM Briceño’s recent meeting with ASR executives, and the possible compromises reached during those discussions.
Sincerely,
Apolinar A. Tzul, M. Ed.
(AMANDALA Ed. Note: The editorial the letter writer refers to appeared on page 5 in last Friday’s edition of Amandala, dated June 27, 2025.)