By Matthew Falloon, Staff Reporter
Roger Clarke (right), Minister of Agriculture, inspects sugar cane yesterday in Ocho Rios, St. Ann, with Karl James (centre), general manager of Jamaica Cane Products Sales Ltd., and Ken Newman, of Cambria Farm, at the 65th annual conference of the Jamaica Association of Sugar Technologists. - Rudolph Brown/Staff Photographer
DESPITE THE worst sugar crop since 1947, Roger Clarke, Minister of Agriculture, vowed yesterday to persevere with the industry, demanding more efficiency in production to ensure survival in an increasingly rocky global market.
"I want to continue in sugar," he told the 65th Annual Conference of the Jamaica Association of Sugar Technologists, in Ocho Rios. "We have problems. We have difficulties but I am still not able to get from all the proponents who say we must destroy sugar, something viable to replace it.
"We are going to have to be extremely efficient if we are going to survive in the sugar industry of the future," he said.
The total sugar production for the 2001-2002 season is 172,252 tonnes, the worst in more than 50 years. This represents a decline in cane production of 254,618 tonnes (11.4 per cent) over the previous crop and a decrease of 29,716 tonnes (14.5 per cent) in sugar production with only two of eight factory Worthy Park and Long Pond showing increases.
The crop also saw a general drop in quality. The loss in production translates into a financial loss of $449.9 million in revenue.
Ambassador Derrick Heaven, chief executive officer of the Sugar Company of Jamaica, told the forum that throughput at the existing factories needed to be increased to make the factories efficient, warning that "imminent closure" remains a realistic prospect if cane production does not increase. The Government-owned SCJ controls an estimated 78 per cent of the sugar industry and, as such, is being closely scrutinised following this dismal period.
Ambassador Heaven blamed "improper forecasting", the "late provision of funds", rainy weather and, in some cases, bad management for the abysmal performance this year. Severe flooding following the May rains compounded the effects of earlier moisture stress conditions and harvesting was suspended for two weeks as a result.
Despite nature's intervention and the general poor performance, Ambassador Heaven remained optimistic, insisting that a return to refining sugar on the island was vital to the future of the industry. He pegged his hopes on a "major overseas concern" potentially "funding a significant upgrading of factories", co-generation of power for processing, a recruitment drive to replenish the industry with a skills-based workforce and the recently completed $4.2 billion financial restructuring of the SJC as the chosen platforms for survival.
"It is very important that people understand that it cannot be business as usual," he said.
The minister had made a similar speech in opening the conference, insisting that the driving force behind the regeneration of the industry must be modernisation and mechanisation.
"We have to find a way, if we are going to continue, to bring the most modern techniques to bear," he said. "We have to mechanise."
With Mr Clarke placing the optimum production volume to make refining viable at 300,000 tonnes of sugar per year, the industry clearly has some way to go to. The 1996 yield of 239,192 tonnes of sugar represents a high over the last seven seasons, a period that has seen competition among global sugar producers intensify.
The Crop Review for 2002, compiled by Derek Little and Joshua Jaddoo of Sugar Industry Research Institute, concluded that "income has decreased significantly while the cost of production is escalating" and that despite the existence of an industry plan since 2000, "practically nothing has been done... instead of moving up, we have slipped further behind".
In the world economy, the future is also bleak. Under the 2001 Everything But Arms (EBA) agreement, LDCs (the 48 Lesser Developed Countries) are set to cut into the current preferential treatment afforded Jamaica as one of 77 ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) countries by the European Union from 2006. A recent challenge to the legitimacy of the preferential European market by Brazil and Australia at the World Trade Organisation also potentially jeopardises the feasibility of small sugar production. Brazil produces 11 million tonnes of sugar on the world market. In the shadow of such a future, Mr Clarke shared the unifying pleas of the Prime Minister.
"The time has come when all the players in the political arena should be able to come together and compare notes and say, 'Let's find a solution to the problem'," he said.
