BELIZE GOVERNMENT BUYS ONE YEAR BREATHER WITH COLLAPSING SUGAR INDUSTRY

BELIZE GOVERNMENT BUYS ONE YEAR BREATHER WITH COLLAPSING SUGAR INDUSTRY

At the best case scenario the government of Belize has a one year breather with the collapsing sugar industry. With a bit of luck, they might get TWO YEARS.
From the government point of view, the government revenues and economic inputs in the North of Belize are in danger. That should not let the politicians and the bureaucrats who manage and plan such things, be complacent about the immediate future.
As the BOY SCOUTS motto says BE PREPARED!
Let us assume we have ONE YEAR. What should the government do?
For starters in preparation for the WORST, the government should IMMEDIATELY get a marketing team together, researching for a substitute crop to export to replace sugar. They then should be contacting experts in the field of processing said crop, or multiple crops and solving the requirements needed to satisfy marketing export requirements. Growing crops is the easy part, if there is an easy part. In our climate and with water, we pretty much can grow anything. Price, ease of shipment, packaging, processing and such things are the decision tree needed to do a selection. Maybe the government will diversify the NORTH?
There probably will always be a sugar industry, but the future of the BSI Factory is very much in doubt to foreclosure. From the little published, the debts of the BSI factory, exceed the revenues that the government collects from the sugar crop. That is a difficult hole to dig one self out of. I look to see smaller companies growing sugar and with smaller sugar mills more suited to the more specialized operations.
Secondly, I see the need for a 10 acre test plot, using modern irrigation management growing techniques to be sponsored by the Research Department of Central Farm Agriculture Department. To see just what is possible production done in Belize along optimum per acre lines for sugar.
We don’t know the future and we cannot see where such preparations will lead. Maybe not to anywhere? The art of success is preparation for the worst and envisioning the worst case scenarios and your courses of action. As an old long time boat captain I can tell you such scenarios and planning become second nature to someone running around the reefs and currents of the Western Caribbean Sea. You have to know what you are going to do, and how you are going to do it, before it happens. When you are prepared, usually nothing happens and the worst calamity becomes neglible.