And with the record high prices, do the industry conditions augur well for a new commercial agreement between the factory and the farmers?
In the past you've heard about ongoing negotiations between the farmers and the miller, and often both parties have a hard time finding a compromise.
But with a new record breaking payout on the table, are the farmers more likely to reach a consensus with the millers during the first round of negotiations?
The director of finance, Shawn Chavarria maintains that they have held up their end of the bargain in improving the industry, so he hopes that the farmers will do the same.
Shawn Chavarria, Director of Finance
"I think it does support the, allowing the parties to reach an agreement and hopefully for more than a year. I think the prices as indicated earlier is a validation of what we've been saying in previous years. Our agreement is a good one. And one that we should continue to work with because it provides a lot benefits for farmers and in the past two years we have seen that this year is a record, and the price last year is at the time the fourth highest that we have ever paid in fact, four or five of the highest prices that has been paid to cane farmers here in the north has been since ASR came into Belize in 2012. We've also have one one of the highest production levels."
"We can move this I dusted along and we do think that with the record cane prices being paid farmers are feeling a bit more optimistic and what really we need is to take that optimism to another known level to reach a long term agreement with the BASCFA which we believe that with the recent events with cane prices and how the market is looking we stand a better chance than perhaps we did maybe a years ago. So I think it's looking a little more optimistic compared to last year and the year before in that respect."
According to Chavarria they have invested a significant amount of not only money but also time and logistics towards improving the industry. He says that the goal is to increase their competitiveness on the international market, but they cannot do so unless the farmers are fully onboard. And the first step at that is signing a commercial agreement before the season can start in Mid December.
Shawn Chavarria, Director of Finance
"Back in 2014 the industry had decided it would embark on a strategic development plan to identify what were the issues and bottlenecks affecting the industry. At the time we identified a few issues in the field side mainly related to productivity. We have one of the lowest yields in the region in fact in the world and that was an issue that needed to be addressed there were also some issues from the regulatory standpoint where the regulations that exist were written in the1950s so they are outdated they need to be modernized from the mill end we needed to address matters of expansion and logistics in improving the efficiency of the mill so fast forward to some eight nine years later where we are. In terms of what BSI had set out to do we have recognized and improved the logistics and the benefits of that are being seen in the improved cane prices due to the lower ocean freight cost. We have expanded and improved the efficiency of the mill and last year we had the lowest lost time on record which is three percent meaning that the mill operated at an extremely high level. We've invested in value added sugar so that we can get better value for our products so I think from that standpoint we have delivered on a lot of the commitments we had set out back in 2014."
"We've put the money in the right places, we are now seeing the benefits of that and it is really time as an industry If we want to become more competitive and build a long term sustainable future that we need to work together because we do have the expertise and we do have the reach to try to see how we can assist farmers to become more productive we just been looking for that opportunity and we are hoping that in the next few weeks we can reach an agreement that can perhaps pave the way for that conversation to finally start."
