Decades of mismanagement, political excuses, and corporate bullying have left Belize’s sugar industry teetering on collapse—while families brace for more pain.

📰 HEADLINE:

By: Omar Silva I Editor/Publisher

National Perspective Bz | Special Report

www.nationalperspectivebz.com

 Belize City: Thursday 3rd July 2025

Orange Walk – The sugar belt is in crisis. But not because of one blockade, one lawsuit, or one bad crop. This is the inevitable consequence of years of mismanagement, greed, and failed leadership by every stakeholder in the industry.

This week, all four cane farmer associations did something unprecedented: they came together. They issued a joint declaration of crisis, admitting that unless prices go up, many cane farmers simply will not survive.

They proposed:

• A price increase for molasses sold to distillers.
• A hike in domestic sugar prices.
• An increase in the price paid for electricity generated from bagasse.

Minister of Agriculture Jose Abelardo Mai—the same minister who oversaw this mess before the elections—offered half-support. He agreed to higher molasses and sugar prices but balked at the idea of raising electricity prices:

“We cannot continue like that…But raising the price of energy would put a direct cost on the consumers, and I don’t think we are prepared to do that.”

Mai’s remarks were the clearest sign yet that the government is trapped between trying to placate voters and pretending to care about farmers. But this is the same government that:

• Appointed Senator Hector Guerra—who now represents ASR/BSI in a lawsuit against the farmers.

• Took over the sugar portfolio in the Prime Minister’s Office, only to pass the buck to a Minister of State.
• Presided over a $31 million loss to farmers this year alone.

While Mai issues statements about the “morality of cheap rum,” families in the North are watching their livelihoods disintegrate.

A Rotten Bargain

For years, ASR/BSI has extracted maximum profits while pushing farmers to the edge. Instead of sharing risk, they have shown no hesitation to sue those same farmers—and by extension, the taxpayers who may end up footing the bill for ASR’s losses.

At the same time, many farmers have continued to cling to a monoculture that leaves them vulnerable to every pest, every flood, and every price drop.

A Prime Minister’s Legacy of Contradictions

John Briceño campaigned as the son of the North. He promised to uplift cane farmers and modernize the industry. But after the elections, he turned sugar into a political football:

• First, removing Mai to take the Ministry himself.
• Then quietly delegating it to Osmond Martinez.
• Then staying silent while ASR’s lawyers threatened farmers in court.

How can Briceño claim to be the champion of the North when his government’s policies, or lack thereof, have left farmers to face lawsuits, infestations, and bankruptcy?

The Cost of Doing Nothing

The truth is stark: Belize now has the cheapest sugar in the region, sold below production cost. Farmers are subsidizing every Belizean who buys sugar, while their own children face hunger.

And when they finally stand together to ask for relief, they are met with:

• Empty assurances.
• Moral lectures about rum.
• And a government more worried about the politics of pricing than the survival of a 100-year-old industry.

A Reckoning Is Coming

If no one acts decisively—if ASR continues to bully, if the government continues to waffle, and if farmers fail to innovate—this industry will collapse.

And when that happens, no price hike, no lawsuit settlement, and no election promise will bring it back.

Final Word

It is time to stop pretending this is someone else’s fault. The sugar crisis is a self-inflicted wound, shared by every player—corporate, political, and agricultural.

And the longer they bicker over blame, the faster the rot spreads.