Our colleagues from CTV 3 news also got an opportunity to speak with Marcos Osorio, the Chairman of the Sugar Industry Control Board.
He explained that because the millers are finishing up the second half of their air emissions project for their boilers, the mill is once again starting the season at half its capacity.
Here are his comments on the immediate challenges facing the industry because of these issues:
Marcos Osorio, Chairman, SICB
"Every day that we are not able to deliver at full capacity, it simply means that its cane delayed in the field, but also being honest is that we will have pretty much of a difficult start a little challenging, because of weather conditions which we experience over the weekend and also field conditions are not optimum as yet. We still have water in field and then that is also impacted with the sugar road conditions, but I must also say that sugar road works are going pretty well at this time and that should be solved in the coming weeks. But most importantly is field conditions. We had rains in June last year and it went all the way in October. So those fields have not dried out as yet. So the 50% capacity in some way, I would say maybe in the first 3-4 days would not bring much of an impact, but thereafter it will, because once this weather continue settling in farmer preparedness will keep increasing and then, unfortunately they will be able to deliver one trip every 2 days."
