Fusarium Fungal Disease Affecting Sugar Cane Fields In Northern Belize

Several cane farmers in northern Belize are being severely affected by the spread of fusarium fungal disease. The fungus has spread to cane fields across the northern districts, affecting an estimated forty thousand acres of the crop. The situation is extremely alarming for farmers, who say it is causing their crops to yield a lower quantity of sugar. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has since received various reports and is moving to meet with experts in Mexico, where the fungus is casing major damage. Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Jose Mai spoke about the concern yesterday. 

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture: “Fusarium is a matter to be seriously worried about. I was at COP29, Azerbaijan and I brought up the matter in the discussion panels. Mexico is seeing a severe drop in production of sugar cane and sugar; sugar cane yield and sugar, the TCTS is horrible and we expect probably similar fate in Belize. We have a large area under infection from Fusarium and the little we’ve harvested so far shows a drop in the purity, a drop in the TCTS in sugar. So we expect it to get worse. It is a matter that we need to address not only Belize but together with Mexico because the disease moves and so we need to take serious action. This morning I was in contact with the plant pathologist at BAHA and he said that they are organizing right now training with the cane producers of Veracruz who seem to have a better grasp of managing with the disease. Now there’s no silver bullet that will cure Fusarium disease. It has to be an integrated program, it has to be integrated cultural practices, it has to be different technology, it has to be resistant varieties and there is no magic bullet that will cure Fusarium it is here to stay with us. We have to engage the other countries that have had experience with managing this and to see how we can start to make that transition towards the integrated system. The farmers get paid by their sugar delivered not sugar cane. So if my sugar cane is at 20 tons of cane to give you one ton of sugar the farmer is losing money and so these are the…..in the past I’ve said the decision to start the crop is a technical one. It has to do with the quality of sugar cane, the maturity of sugar cane and the weather.”

Sugar cane crop season opened last month to a rather sluggish delivery of cane to the mill. /