Today, we also stopped by the Orange Walk office of the BSCFA for an interview, but Chairman Andy Westby told us he was tied up in branch meetings for the rest of the day.
One official who was available for comment on the negotiations between the millers and the biggest of the four associations was Florencio Marin Sr. As we told you, the Briceno Government has retained Marin on a 1-year contract to act as an advisor to the Ministry of Agriculture.
The Prime Minister has asked for him to act as a mediator between the farmers - specifically BSCFA -and the millers. It's part of a bigger plan to avoid another costly stand-off and protest. But how well is that intervention going? We asked Marin to discuss his advocacy between these two groups who have a major difference of opinion:
Florencio Marin Sr., PM Briceno's Mediator, Sugar Industry
"While there is no commercial agreement signed yet, there had been advances in the negotiation. So, I hope to have a meeting within the next two weeks. And in that meeting, I intend to hammer on both parties that it is time to sit down and negotiate in a give-and-take attitude. I am hopeful that common sense will prevail. The manufacturers know that a dissatisfied major group of cane farmers if they are not happy, you cannot expect that they will do everything to bring up their cane fields in production and bring good cane to the factory next year. In my opinion, everybody loses if we do not have cane farmers happy with an agreement that they think is fair on both sides. It has to be fair on both sides because in manufacturing, we are talking about overhauling the factory, and it has costs. And naturally, the industry has to find a way to assist in this."
Reporter
"The factory has said that they have shown where they can't offer more than they're currently offering, and so that is what they are putting on the table now. So, I guess it's for the other side to either accept."
Florencio Marin Sr., PM Briceno's Mediator, Sugar Industry
"No. It's not a take it or leave it situation. In any negotiations, you sit down, you discuss, you rationalize the issues on the table. As far as I am concerned, neither BSI/ASR nor BSCFA have exhausted the negotiating process. There is room for both of them to sit down and continue."
We'll keep following these talks between these two major stakeholders in the sugar industry.
