Photo: Olivia Avilez, Manager of Cane Farmer Relations, BSI

ORANGE WALK, Wed. Dec. 27, 2022

A persistent drizzle over the weekend resulted in wet conditions that prevented cane farmers from the northern districts from carrying out the necessary fieldwork on their plantations and getting enough sugar cane stalks ready for delivery at the Belize Sugar Industries’ (BSI) mill on Tuesday— the scheduled date for the start of milling after the signing of an interim agreement between BSI and the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association (BSCFA) on Friday. BSI reps have indicated that the scale of machinery used for milling requires a threshold amount of cane to maintain a steady flow of production, and that the amount of cane that had thus far been delivered was not enough to meet that threshold. Olivia Avilez, Manager of Cane Farmer Relations at BSI, at a press briefing called by the company specified the minimal amount of cane that would have been needed to start the milling operations: 600 tons of cane. She also noted that an assurance of a consistent supply from the farmers is also needed prior to to starting what is a large-scale, intensive milling process. Until the quantities of cane being delivered are sufficient and there is a steady, rather than halting, flow of such deliveries, the BSI has thus opted to delay grinding the sugar cane that has so far been delivered but has begun offloading the cane.

Deliveries, which had been scheduled to start at about 10:00 on Tuesday, December 27, reportedly started at about noon that day.

“We haven’t started grinding. We have started to receive the cane and offloading. We haven’t started grinding because, what is important is that when we start, we don’t stop. This is a big machine; of course, it’s an entire system. So, once we start grinding, we want a steady flow. So, we are awaiting information from the SCPC manager, who is confirming the numbers from the cane farmers…. We estimate later today, maybe in the late afternoon, that we’re able to start grinding,” said Avilez.

During an interview with CTV3, Avilez said, “We understand that farmers are just taking a little bit longer on the field to load, and there is some already on the way.” She said that, although only one boiler has been active, due to modifications that were made to ensure that the air emissions from the factory are less harmful, the company aims to have the second boiler in operation before the January 2023 deadline.

“We will start with half the usual amount, because of the issue with cane supply, and so we are starting with that, and as we progress and we are sure about cane supply, then we can move forward, and move up the milling rate,” Avilez further explained.

Chairman of the Sugar Industry Control Board (SICB), Marco Osorio, said that they expected to have been notified earlier of the decision to delay milling due to insufficient cane.

“I just forwarded a message to Mr. Chavarria [BSI Director of Finance] asking him why the gates were not open if the time was 10 o’clock, and his response, was ‘there is not enough cane supply and we don’t want to start and stop’. It is understood, but that communication should have come earlier, you know, officially from their end,” Osorio said.

He agreed that given the weather conditions and the farmers’ limited ability to extract cane from their fields at that time, starting the mill at a 50% production rate was a practical decision, but as the harvest season progresses, full production levels will be needed.

“Well, at the end of the day, every day that we are not able to deliver at full capacity, it simply means that it is cane that is being delayed in the field, but also, being honest, we will have a pretty much of a difficult start, little challenging because of weather condition, we say, over the weekend, and field conditions are not optimum as yet – we still have water in the fields,” Osorio said.

According to him, the Sugar Cane Production Committee (SCPC) estimates that 1.34 million tons of cane can be milled this year. BSI has indicated that they expect to mill one million one hundred and fifty thousand tons of cane to produce one hundred and twenty-three thousand tons of sugar.

“The crop is expected to run from today to the end of July,” Osorio said. He said that with the water damage, pest damage, and quantity of stand-over cane, they are concerned about the cane quality.

“The mill issued a first price estimate indicating that starting with a TCTS of 9.39, and I recall at last crop which started with better conditions than we have today, and the TCTS back then was at 10, so we had questioned why 9.39 because of the condition we have today, which are far different from last year, and we definitely foresee that there will be a big challenge in terms of TCTS cane quality,” Osorio said.

Undelivered sugar cane that had remained in the fields since last year (or standover cane) will be a significant part of deliveries for this year. In an interview earlier this month, Minister of Agriculture, Jose Mai noted that around 125 tons of cane were left in the field last year.

Avilez said that ensuring that the maximum amount of sugar is extracted from the sugar cane is important. This will require that the milling target be met every day.

“The SCPC has made an estimate of around 1.3 million tonnes and a little bit more. Our perspective on that is, again, every year, we have an inflated production estimate. And again, this year, we think that there has been a lot of impacts from flooding and stand-over cane which will not yield production estimate. And we’ve also had some impacts from frog hoppers, which are one of the key pests in the industry. So, with all of that, our estimate is around 1.15 million tonnes of cane. When we lose, it’s not just days. We lose the amount of cane… What is worse, when you don’t have your crop in the cycle is that you’re losing sugar, and you’re also impacting the following crop. For example, right now, the cane is already impacted. You have the stand-over cane that we didn’t mill last year because we had a really late start again…. So, you have that cane that’s already impacted, that’s going to start to come into the factory. You have less sugar from the year before, and you’re also having those fields being able to ratoon… So, you don’t have that production. You don’t have the sugar content that should have come in, and you also don’t have the optimal time of that cane, because the maturity of that is long gone. So, when you’re calculating, or when you’re looking at the impact of not starting a crop season in time, you have to look at all of those factors,” she said.