As we've been reporting this week - there is an active back and forth between ASR BSI and the Government of Belize.
That's after Cabinet decided that cane farmers from the north can start delivering what's called their standover cane to Santander.
Now, standover is industry parlance for "leftovers" - but ASR BSI argues that there won't really be any leftovers when the season is done, and that even if they were, the cost of delivery for cane from the north to the west is so high that farmers would barley make anything.
UDP Deputy Leader Hugo Patt, whose family business is cane production says that for his family's farms in Patchakan, it would make no economic sense at all. He told us more by phone:
Hon. Hugo Patt
"For us to transport cane to BSI considering the high cost of fuel, it is a challenge, in terms of making profits. Tower Hill is some 37 miles away from where we live, so that if that is a challenge for us and I spoke to the Honorable Minister of Agriculture, Jose Abelardo Mai and I told him that if I am a cane farmer and I find it very difficult to transport cane from Patchakan to BSI, I don't see how it will be economically feasible for any farmer to transport sugar to Santander. If it is that the government would subsidized that kind of delivery then I think that the cane farmer stand to make a profit, but if it is that we are going to take sugar cane and cane farmer at the end of the day will owe the transporter, the one who will do the freight service, then it doesn't make any business sense."
Past says that, as it is, Patchakan's fields are among the farthest from the ASR/BSI mill - a distance fo 37 miles.
