During the question-and-answer portion of the press conference, the media challenged the Association's head table on the concerns from the millers that the attempts to renegotiate the commercial agreement will disrupt the next sugar cane season, given the history of divisiveness those talks generated. For context, we contrast that to the comments of BSI's representative, William Neal, from last Friday's press conference:
William Neal - BSI/ASR's Representative
"They said that they wanted a new agreement, and as I said before, the core values of the agreement itself have been there for decades. What else could you want other than the value share to change, or for some other issue - may be to revisit bagasse? We feel as a company that we are investing. We're doing everything in terms of sustainability. We're all going through a very difficult time. There's nothing that we can give in terms of more to the associations, in terms of money, in terms of how it affects the value share. So, we just prefer not to pretend that we are coming to the table with an eye to offering more because we simply cannot. We've had the opportunity to speak with the government, and open our books to show exactly what the losses have been for the company. But, we also believe that as an industry, it's important that we continue to invest and reduce the bottlenecks that we have as an industry going forward."
Reporter " Is the association being greedy?"
Oscar Alonzo - Executive Director, BSCFA
"Well you said it okay and this the approach that we're saying that BSI continues to take okay. You mentioned the word suffer, instead of trying to see how they would agreement in order for everyone to benefit, they used terms that harm people. When we set our proposal to BSI, we were optimistic, we mentioned to them we sent it well ahead of time to finalize and complete these negotiations and sign and agreement on the first of December. We would like to sign these agreement by the first of December. We know that the current agreement, contrary to what they are saying out there that because of having sent our notification on the 10th of August that our farmers do not have a contract, yes they do have a contract because this agreement does not expire until the 19th of January, 2022."
Reporter
"Do you intend to hold a mill hostage? Do you intend to hold production hostage if you don't reach an agreement?"
Oscar Alonzo "I understand your concern right but this is not the way we are thinking, we're not thinking of holding hostage anyone okay, we're thinking of trying to form the best foundation for the delivery of our cane to the mill."
Daniel Ortiz
"I'm still unclear as to what the plan is, because I remember how contentious and decisive the negotiations were on the topic of bagasse last time and we saw how many days the sugar industry was delayed because of it. So I'm still unsure as to what will happen if you all cannot go to the table and if you all maintain your positions firmly on each side."
Oscar Alonzo "I understand your concern and your question and we have taken it into account right but we have planned our activity to avoid that situation. In our letter to BSI we say we say we are prepared to meet as early as the week of the 13th of September, which give them enough time to do their due diligence on whatever proposal we have presented to them. They presented proposals to us which are not much as you said, they want us to approve changes that include their economic position in regards to the agreement but when it comes to include all economic positions, they do not want to look at that."
This evening, the Government of Belize sent out a press release noting that Jose Mai, the Minister of Agriculture, Food Security, and Enterprise held a meeting today with the leaders of the sugar cane producing associations, and other stakeholders in Corozal.
The press release says, quote, "The discussions focused on the commercial agreement between farmers and ASR/BSI… the meeting…sought to first seek common ground between the associations on both issues and to present a united front as producers in light of the upcoming situations facing the industry. All present agreed to work together for the greater benefit of the industry. " End quote.
Mai was accompanied by Ministers Ramiro Ramirez and Elvia Vega. The Belize Sugar Cane Farmers' Association, the Progressive Sugar Cane Farmers' Association, and Northern Sugar Cane Farmers' Association were also represented.
