CLAUDE REID, agronomist at the Sugar Company of Jamaica, Monymusk Division, Clarendon has said that despite the drought affecting the parish, the division has recorded an increase in sugar production.
He said in 2003, the company produced about 19,000 tonnes of sugar while 2004 accounts for 27,000 tonnes.
Mr. Reid said he was pleased with this attainment especially given that the division had lost more 344 hectares of canes because of illicit fires while another 144 hectares were damaged by stray cattle, costing more than $114 million.
He was speaking recently at a ceremony hosted by JAMALCO to honour of nine winners of the Clarendon Cane Cutters competition.
For his part, Howard Latchman of JAMALCO said that the honourees should continue to lead by example in their field. "Champions have two things: a definite goal and the will to attain it," he said while noting that cane cutters were very important in the success of the sugar industry.
The top four pairs of cane cutters were Carlton Hutchinson and Hubert Colder who were placed first, Michael Hardie and Joseph Hardie (second), Dwight Brown and Cosmo Gayle (third) and Dukeland Willis and Patraig Suban (fourth). Icilda Anderson, who did not emerge in the top pairs, was the only female to have entered the competition.
