Stakeholders Must Unite…!

February 2^nd marked the first anniversary of the death of San Victor, Corozal sugar cane farmer Antanacio Gutierrez who was shot down in a hail of bullets on the main access road leading into the Belize Sugar Industries Limited Tower Hill compound.  His death was the low point of the violent clashes between cane farmers and the country’s security forces over the core sampler which tested the cane’s sucrose content that later determined the remuneration to cane farmers.

Today, it seems that Gutierrez died in vain because the sugar industry’s main stakeholders, the cane farmers and BSI, appear to have learnt nothing from the January/February 2009 strike that caused the temporary shutdown of the industry that resulted in millions of dollars in losses to the North’s economy.  Moreover, it seems that the industry is worse off than even before his death.  There are volatile issues that if left unresolved may cause irreparable damage to the industry.

The 2009/2010 crop started on Wednesday, December 16^th, the latest it has done so in history.  It was a pity really because more than 6,000 cane farmers and their families of the Corozal and Orange Walk Districts are heavily dependent on the cultivation of sugar for their only source of income.  Besides it is not as if though they would have made much money this crop.

The industry is floundering and even the most optimistic of us would say that it is on the brink of economic death as a result of the loss of its preferential market and the 36 percent cut in the European Union’s sugar price that will take effect this crop.  And to make matters worse, the cane farmers and BSI remain at odds.

Aside from delaying the payment of the third bonus payment for the 2008/2009 crop and the historical late start of the 2009/2010 crop, cane farmers believe that BSI does not have their best interests as a priority.  And the constant shutdown of the factory earlier this year that resulted in the cane farmers being unable to deliver their cane was viewed with suspicion.

And it does not seem that the relationship will improve any time soon particularly because of the cane farmers’ demand for remuneration of the bagasse generated from their delivered cane and used by BSI to generate electricity, given that BSI expects to earn millions of dollars a year from its sale to the national grid.  For its part, BSI maintains that the bagasse would be only industrial waste with little value were it not for the company’s more than $125 million investment in the cogeneration facility.

Now it seems that the cane farmers are no longer united but have splintered into three separate associations.  According to the 2001 Sugar Cane Act, the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers’ Association is the only entity that can legally represent or negotiate on the cane farmers’ behalf.  But the BSCFA has been wracked recently by accusations of mismanagement of funds that led to the termination of Chief Executive Officer Carlos Magaña and of political interference.

This resulted in the BSCFA’s hegemony being challenged in the Supreme Court of Belize by the United Cane Farmers’ Association that is based in Orange Walk Town.  Not long after the Supreme Court ruled that the UCFA could represent cane farmers, than another association the Corozal Sugar Producers’ Union was formed in Corozal Town by various prominent cane farmers who once backed the UCFA.

It seems that the CSPU was formed because the Corozal cane farmers were of the opinion that they were being marginalized by the Orange Walk associations and that they were not reaping the financial benefits from international donors as their Orange Walk counterparts.  Perhaps this was the reason that Corozal cane farmers blocked the entrance to the factory this week while Orange Walk cane farmers were delivering their cane.

But it seems that the associations and their leaders are only battling over the control of the tens of millions of dollars of Fair Trade funds and the whopping $140 million dollars that will be made available to the cane farmers by the European Union to help them to improve their efficiency and productivity in light of the loss of the preferential market and the 36 percent cut in price.  It seems that cane farmers are hedging their bets on those leaders, who they believe may provide them with the most perks out of the millions of dollars.

For the good of the industry, all stakeholders must realize that the industry will only stay afloat if all stakeholders start working in tandem.  It goes without saying that its demise would be catastrophic.  Sugar is still the biggest foreign exchange earner of all the county’s agricultural commodities, and it is unquestionably the largest employer of labor in the North.  Indeed, the industry has played a significant role in our national development and it still has an important contribution to make.

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