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And as for the Sugar Industry Commission of Inquiry, the full report has yet to be completed, and McLachlan has only seen bits and pieces of it. He says that he is in support of the document as long as it will improve their relationship with the farmers.
Mac McLachlan, VP, International Relations, ASR BSI
"From what we have seen I think the COI have one a good job in identifying the issues we just talked about a lot of them, as I understand it they will be recommending quality testing of cane which is completely ceased at the moment and they will be recommending the use of simmers as I just mentioned and they are recommending a lot of reforms in the cane farm to time improve productivity and quality and I think they will also be recommending things to the government and how that should be paid for."
"I'm all for taking forward anything that is positively going to take this industry forward, clearly this report did not do what some of the stakeholders wanted it to do so you know that was never really going to be the issue, the issue is how do we do what other industries in the region have done in modernising ad turning around their industries we have such a good platform here and it would e a wonderful thing if we could realise the opportunities that I think ASR in particular has brought to Belize through its 160 US Million investments and over the last 11 years now so we live in hope."
"I think as long as The BSCFA is only objective is to gain more benefits from the mill then I can't see any number of COI's or anything else changing that. You know we have always been very clear that we think that the agreements we have with farmers are very reasonable and they are. We are losing money and I think anybody feeling that they have more money to lose is mistaken. So a lot really depends on the farmers themselves. I mean the BSCFA is now less than half of the industry and I think that we will continue our very constructive conversations with the three cane farmer associations. We are already talking about how we can collectively modernise and move forward in sensible ways and incentivise improvements in quality and productivity."