BSI/ASR optimistic next crop season will have promising returns

Cane farmers are expected to receive close to 70 dollars per ton as the latest cane price estimates have been released. That’s what the ASR/BSI Cane Farmers Relations Manager, Olivia Carballo-Avilez told the cane farmer associations in a letter on Friday. The 69 dollars and change per ton is a significant improvement on last year’s second payment. In our conversation with Avilez yesterday, we asked her what role did the efficiency of the milling and delivery processes play in arriving at this second payment. 

Olivia Carballo- Avilez, Cane Farmers Relations Manager, BSI/ASR: “This year’s cane volumes we could have done definitely more cane because there was some stand of working but due to the challenges we had at the start of the crop and also 14 days basically of stop due to weather really put a dent in the amount of cane volumes compared to last year or so we would have been able to do a bit more with the cane volumes but nevertheless we did 1.16 million tons of cane so it was what the days of crop could have been milled. We did a pretty good run this year. We were able to demonstrate that the factory is prepared to mill even over 7000 tons of cane when we have the optimal conditions. The efficiency of the grinding or the amount of cane that we can mill per day is highly dependent on external factors such as weather, the cane quality in particular and if we have good quality cane then we are able to be efficient in both grinding and extraction. Our efficiency when the factory talks about efficiency we talk about extraction of sugar out of the cane that is coming in and in that regard we were very efficient in doing that extracting the most amount of sugar. Our PC/TS was about 9.23 tons of cane to tons of sugar so that was relatively good which again puts a factor into the cane price.” 

However, as you may recall, the start of the current crop season was wrought with challenges including delays brought on by the impasse between the BSCFA and BSI/ASR. We asked Avilez if those issues have been ironed out and what impact did the dispute have on this year’s prices. She says the company is optimistic that not only the issues will be resolved but next year’s prices will be just as good or even better. Here’s how she explained it. 

Olivia Carballo- Avilez, Cane Farmers Relations Manager, BSI/ASR: “The factory is usually ready by mid-December. The repair season usually runs from July end of July to December. This coming crop season the mill will be ready for mid-December. All our works and activities are in line with the work plan that we have so we are very confident that we are going to be able to as a factory be ready for mid-December. We are still in negotiations with one association on commercial agreements. All three associations have commercial agreements which we don’t see an impediment there. Of course we are working towards ensuring that all associations have commercial agreements and there aren’t any delays surrounding that. We will continue those efforts to secure the commercial agreement that is presently expired so that we are able to start the price for next year is also looking relatively good given the market and given the investments that have been made. We usually issue an estimate in November as well when we issue the third cane payment so that is forthcoming and we are looking forward to farmers being motivated as well because whatever savings and improvements in efficiency and improvements in price is at a direct impact to cane price and to the estimates and the start of the crop season.”