The start of the rainy season has cane farmers concerned. We hear more in this report from Arturo Cantun.

ARTURO CANTUN REPORTING

"The sky over Orange Walk and Corozal was still overcast this morning and the Belize Met Office is forecasting more rain up until the weekend. This does not favor the hundreds of cane farmers who still have a total of two hundred and forty thousand ton of sugar cane left in the fields. The weekend rains was surely a major impact on the industry that was running smoothly up until its eighteenth week."

ALFREDO ORTEGA
Vice Chairman
Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association

"Yes it has negative impact in regards to the harvesting of our cane at this point in time and we just hope that God blesses us in stopping a little bit of the rain, so that the many farmers that has not delivered anything as yet can have that opportunity to deliver part of the material they have for this crop. We are asking the group leaders to give that opportunity to the farmers that they have under their care, to take out a percentage of their cane so that they can give opportunity to all the members they have under their care to deliver a certain percentage of their cane; so, whatsoever will stay in the field, wouldn't stay in the burden of a little few farmers but rather it can be spread out upon most, if not all farmers so that the weight don't be felt in one farmer and all of us bear the burden of that amount of percentage of cane that cannot be delivered to the mill."


ARTURO CANTUN
Love Reporter
"BSCFA vice chairman Alfedo Ortega says the last time so much cane remained in the field was in 2010."

ALFREDO ORTEGA
Vice Chairman
Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association

"We have never experienced that, only in 2010, we had that experience when there was the inter-connection between BSI and BELCOGEN but from there after that really harmed us that they have a production that fell very low. The year after that we only managed to deliver 843,000 tons of cane but from then after we are experiencing a year per year increment in regards to production and if we will be staying with 200 tons this year it will be a very significant amount that will really harm those farmers that will be, or the industry as a whole and worst the production sector that will be staying with that cane. So we are hoping that an extension is given to the summer, so that as an industry we can deliver most of the cane that we have and the impact then would be minimal but it all depends on what they can do for us. We have been in contact with them and yesterday we had a meeting with them on which we agreed that crop will be going on way until the end of June and if weather permits that we can go a little bit further, we will, so that we can deliver most of our material forecasted for this year. "


ARTURO CANTUN
Love FM/Love TV Reporter

"Until yesterday BSI had produced approximately 102 thousand tons of sugar. The projected sugar production set at the beginning of the season is 115 thousand tons of sugar. For this amount to be accomplished, cane farmers and BSI would need to deliver and mill some 50 thousand tons of sugar cane each week for the next three weeks. Love News spoke with factory manager John Gillett who confirmed to us that no date has been set for the end of the sugar cane delivery season and all will depend on weather conditions."

LOVEFM