Belize Sugar Industry:Sugar factory grinding cane again!

As we went to press last Thursday night, antagonists in the long-running cane strike had appeared to harden their positions. Belize Sugar Industries, in a press release on Thursday, insisted that the cane farmers had to guarantee quality for the industry to survive.

The Cane Farmers Association, preparing to bury one of their own the next day, continued to demand the withdrawal of the method the parties had agreed to months and years beforehand as a necessary condition for further negotiations, though its CEO and representatives were said to be “exploring solutions” with prominent senator, businessman and member of the Sugar Industry Control Board, Godwin Hulse. And the Government of Belize was keeping its cards close to its chest.

Today, however, the cane farmers are reportedly back to work, and there is an agreement in place to remove the core sampler and pay the farmers by the old method, by the weight of the cane delivered.

The big question is: what happened in less than 24 hours to cause a sudden end to a protracted action that had severely affected the industry and garnered some international attention?

The man with the key to that question is Acting Prime Minister of Belize and Orange Walk North area representative, Hon. Gaspar Vega. He reportedly called a meeting on Friday with the antagonists in the dispute and the Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Rene Montero.

At that meeting, Hon. Montero reportedly agreed to provide more on-site technical assistance in quality control to the farmers through extension officers of the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), in exchange for the removal of the core sampler.

While the core sampler will no longer be in use and the farmers will be paid on the same basis as in previous crops, they are not off the hook in terms of delivery of a quality product. According to the Cane Farmers Association’s CEO, Carlos Magaña, the MOA’s extension officers will closely monitor the farmers’ product and work with the eighteen branch leaders of the Association to preach the new philosophy of quality sugar cane, quality sugar, fair pricing.

A clearly relieved BSI did not hesitate to praise the negotiated agreement effusively. BSI’s finance director, Belizario Carballo, summarized the situation thus at the press conference held Friday afternoon: “…we must remember that the core sampling was only a means or a mechanism of getting where we want to go. Given the challenges that the industry faces, we know we need to produce more and better quality sugar, which begins with more and better quality cane. That is the objective. How we achieve that is what we’ve been discussing over these past few days. Core sampling was defined under the law as the method of doing that. That is now being redefined and we have commitments on the parts of the Association and on the part of BSI to work jointly together on collaborating a plan, a more detailed plan that will help us to achieve that objective.”

With that accomplished, the North returned to life on Sunday morning, as the cane trucks rumbled through the gates of Tower Hill, where for the last twelve days the cane farmers’ strike had shaken a foundation industry of Belize.

At press time today no one is saying much, as they are all reportedly in meetings to continue to flesh out the tentative deal reached last Friday.