Fairtrade Premium boosts yields in Belize

Sugarcane Boost programme improves sugarcane yields in Belize

Fairtrade is a certification scheme which allows Tate & Lyle Sugars to sell Fairtrade certified sugar and generate value for the sugarcane farmers who participate in the scheme, working alongside farmers to ensure better livelihoods for themselves and their families.

Corozal Sugar Cane Producers Association (CSCPA) is one of the cane farmer groups in Belize, who supply the mill that we purchase raw sugar from for our Thames Refinery. Their members have recently found their farms badly impacted by a fungus called fusarium.

But a project that they have been running called the Sugarcane Boost programme is improving sugarcane yields.

Sugarcane is a ratoon plant with a lifecycle of 6-8 years so farmers should be replanting part of their land every year to optimise their production. But replanting is very expensive and so farmers often do not do this, causing their production to fall and creating a cycle of declining yields leading to declining income.

CSCPA use the Fairtrade Premium from Tate & Lyle Sugars to offer subsidised services to cane farmers to replant one acre of land. The subsidy provided by CSCPA aims to increase production which will generate increased income per acre for up to 7 years.

This is just one of many great projects funded by the Fairtrade Premium generated by sales of Tate & Lyle sugar.