And while this a major development in the corn industry, the sugar industry has nothing good to celebrate right now. As we reported before, the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association has opted to terminate its commercial agreement ahead of its expiration, and since the association is responsible for the bulk of the sugar cane that goes to the mill, it spells bad news for the upcoming crop season.
Yesterday we asked the CEO in the Ministry of Agriculture about this, and he said that believes the two parties should come to the negotiation table to hammer out a compromise.
Servulo Baeza - CEO, Ministry of Agriculture
"The agreement itself, let me start off by saying the agreement itself does give the option for you to renegotiate, it is in the agreement, so there is no question whether there should be any type of renegotiation. There has been some resistance from ASR to go back to the table to renegotiate which the biggest association, the BSCFA is advocating they want to renegotiate and they have given clear intentions that they want to go back to the table. In terms of the last agreement that they signed, that clause is there, that 3 months before it expires you have a right to inform the other party that you want to renegotiate, so there shouldn't be any doubt about that, they should sit down at the table and look at the terms again, that should happen. We have been discussing with farmers and listening to their concerns on what are the areas that they want to look at, ASR has written to the association saying we don't think it's an appropriate time right now and there are certain things they don't want to look at again but there are things they want to add, so obviously if they are things that they want to add and the farmers want to negotiate, then that should happen. We in terms of the ministry is certainly in support, they should sit down around the table in any kind of negotiation, I don't think any party should come out totally on top, there has to be some room for compromise."
