During the wealthy days of the cane farmers of the north back in the mid 70?s and up to the mid 80?s, the north with its booming sugar cane industry was one of the economic pillars that contributed much to the economic progress of the entire country. Why then should the cane farmers be now abandoned in their hardship and misery?

Some people may be quick to point out that we have become a mono-culture and that the cane farmers are to blame because they refuse to ?diversify? away from sugar cane. This is not true, amigo. Compadre, a pound of onion these days is $1.25. In 2002 and 2003 some cane farmers of the Corozal District, with the help of the St. Francis Xavier Credit Union, ventured to diversify into onion production. The Belize Marketing Board committed itself to buy the onions from the farmers and the extension officers gave the technical skills and know how in the field. The first year 2002 was a big success. Farmers paid off their loans and made a handsome profit. The big success story was Hilario Puck of Cristo Rey village who cultivated 6 mecates or ? acre of onions and harvested 42,000 lbs. at .55 per lb. The Marketing Board paid him a cheque of $23,000.00. His expense in fertilizers and herbicides and pesticides was not more than $3,000.00. If we put labour at $2,000.00, then this farmer made approximately $18,000.00 profit in such a small plot of land, in a time period of 4 months. Now, as cane farmers we harvest acres and acres of sugar cane and we hardly make a profit of $3,000.00, if any.

To make this story short, the following year 2003 more farmers undertook to plant more onion fields. It was a big bumper crop. Problems began. The Marketing Board didn?t have storage facility. Farmers were forced to sell on the local market. Soon, the shops were saturated with onions and stopped buying. Due to rainy weather conditions most of the onions got spoilt in the field and rotted. The point I am trying to make here is that due to experiences like this, farmers are scared away from diversifying into other crops. Therefore, onion and hot pepper cultivation could be an option to sugar cane in the north, but until the Ministry of Agriculture gets serious enough in prioritizing agricultural products with market-oriented strategies at the local level and the exporting of these products to foreign markets, cane farmers of the north are being left to a swim or sink situation.

So, Caneros del Norte, what are we going to do about our industry? Are we just going to sit down and see our demise and allow ourselves to become poorer, hungry and ignorant? How are we going to feed our families and educate our children? Let us unite and save our industry at whatever cost. Let us demand from the powers that might be, what pragmatic plans they have for the ailing industry other than just focusing on Carnival and Offshore banking. The time to get more involved is today, not tomorrow. Next year could be too late. Consequently, we might become a colonia of Chetumal. But also I want to remind you that there is another sugar cane industry across the border that?s paying about $65.00 per ton of sugar cane to its farmers. But do we want to sell them our sugar cane? It was done in the past. But I believe we can still save our industry this time around and avoid such a situation. Let?s hope so.

Vicente Canul