Hon. Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
Agriculture Minister: “Sugar industry is in serious crisis”
ORANGE WALK, Wed. June 18, 2025
On the sidelines of the budget debate on May 27, when Amandala asked for an update on the efforts to bridge the divide between the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association (BSCFA) and Belize Sugar Industries (BSI), Prime Minister John Briceño stated, “I think that BSCFA, the leaders are realizing that we could be continuing this fighting back and forth and they might be fighting over nothing.” The reference to “nothing” was a direct signal that soon, there may just be nothing left to fight over. It was an indication of the dire state of the sugar industry in the north due to all the challenges this season which were contributing to a greatly reduced crop, coupled with lower sugar prices on the world market.
With only a couple days or so remaining in the zafra, Minister of Agriculture Jose Mai this week was able to provide a clearer picture of just how bad things are. After receiving an update from the Sugar Industry Research and Development Institute (SIRDI) on the spread of the Fusarium disease in the north, his Ministry called a high-level meeting with farmers. Though being cautious in an effort to not be alarmist or sensational, Minister Mai declared that the industry is in serious crisis. “We’re not in a very good place. We’re in a very sad state right now,” he warned. In previous interviews, the Minister had already alluded to the industry facing even greater peril next year, given that the size of the crop is projected to decline even further, but on Monday he questioned if we will even have an industry in 2027. It has now been determined that the Fusarium disease, which he considers to be so powerful due to the poor health of the soil from decades of burning, is impacting all cane fields in the north, just at varying degrees. He stated, “60% to 70% of fields are yellowing.” The state is expected to worsen in the rainy season, given that the fungus is spread by spores. He added, “We will have the fungus by the time the crop is ready to open.” Mai said that all measures being put in place currently won’t yield immediate results.
Based on the figures provided by the Minister, the sugar cane harvest reached 853,000 tons this week, which means it is 119,000 tons lower than what it was at the same time last year. This translates to a shortfall of 23,000 tons of sugar and a shortfall of $53 million in proceeds from sugar and molasses. For the next season, he estimates that the decline in production may be as much as 200,000.
Assessing the impacts, Minister Mai laid out a reminder that with 5,000 cane farmers, 20,000 people will be impacted; and when employees and mill workers are added, that figure increases to 35,000. The Minister believes that at some point, it will become ineffective for the miller to continue operating based on the significant shortfall, which could lead to BSI actually having to scale down its staff. He shared that the mill has a set number of workers who are paid based on the processing of 1.2 million tons of cane every season. “So, clearly, there has to be some kind of scaling down. But that’s not for me to say, right?” said Minister Mai.
In an apparent consideration of worst-case scenarios, the Minister commented that if he were the banks, he’d be worried right now, and would be saying, “Wait? Will you have cane next year?”
Asked if cane farmers can survive this onslaught, Mai lamented that it does not appear that farmers are working to improve cane quality, and he says they need to be asked if they have lost hope in the industry. He shared that the sugar cane quality at this time is 11.4 tons of cane (TC) to 1 ton of sugar (TS) or 11.4:1, which is horrible compared to last year’s TC/TS ratio of 9.25:1. He recalled that the last time the quality of sugar cane was this low was in 2010 when it was 12.25:1.
As to the prices on the world market, compared to last year’s $87 paid to farmers, this year “we are talking about $54,” reported the Minister.
As to the way forward, the indomitable Minister affirmed, “We cannot allow the sugar industry to go down the same road as the citrus industry. It will not happen! Not under this Minister.” He said that they require immediate responses from all stakeholders, and in the case of the Ministry itself, he says they have responded with lightning speed. According to Mai, they have allocated $2 million to SIRDI to strengthen its capacity to produce the biological controls, which is another fungus that works to control the spread of Fusarium. One piece of good news is that one trial with biological controls and other inputs is producing good results. All hands are being brought on deck, and IICA is working with the University of Belize to culture our own biological control fungus in Belize. Other options include fungicides, which Mai says they are hesitant to apply, given that they could be toxic to humans and bad for the environment, and therefore have to be used in small quantities. A third option to be explored is resistant and tolerant sugar cane varieties, which they would only be harvesting some two to three years down the road.
Mai says they will now report to Cabinet on the state of the industry, which continues to be impacted by a labour shortage. He is calling for “all hands on deck”, and declared that “the time for playing politics with sugar cane is done.” He affirmed, “It is the time to put all the minds together to see how we can solve this crisis.”