THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE LETTER to the Editor published in your paper on October 7, 2005, under the above caption, caught my attention. As I read it, the epitaph in the King James version of the Bible concerning Abel came to mind. It says of him, and I quote, "He being dead, yet speaketh".
My good friend, Mark Brooks, is still very much alive, and I understand that he has moved from St. Ann to St. Elizabeth, where he no doubt will teach those farmers a few things. As far as sugar is concerned, I thought Mark had died. It appears he is only resting!
Mark and I have serious disagreements about the root causes of sugar failure in Jamaica. He continues to emphasise the presence of soil-borne pathogens and the disease factors as the root causes of failure, while completely ignoring the overriding factors of who owns the means of production, and how they are managed.
CONTROLLED MAJOR DISEASES
The Jamaican sugar industry has grappled with, and successfully controlled several major diseases and pests. These include mosaic, smut, rust, ratoon stunting, chlorotic streak, cane fly, and stalk borer, to name a few. The fact that there are farmers in Jamaica still achieving acceptable levels of productivity on fields that have produced sugar cane for over 300 years, proves that the problems inherent in the practice of monoculture can be overcome by expert management of soil, genetic factors, nutrition, and perhaps most importantly, the available financial resources.
Jamaican sugar production peaked in the 1960s when the ownership of the large estates and factories was in private hands. The market for our sugar was stable as we had guaranteed access to the U.K. market, while subsidising the sugar sold on the local market. Our two largest farms and factories, Frome and Monymusk, were owned and operated by Tate and Lyle, and Innswood, where I work, was owned by the Booker Group.
COMPANIES WITH EXPERIENCE
These companies had worldwide experience in the sugar business, and had resources, both capital and human, to successfully manage their operations. The circumstances leading to the departure of these companies from the Jamaican scene are well documented, and it would be good for someone to dig up the facts. The consequence of these companies leaving Jamaica was that the Government took charge of the major entities of production.
This fact alone explains the disaster that has attended our sugar industry, greatly out-weighing the points that Mark Brooks has often raised. Just think of the changes in the corporate structure of the Government side of the industry! From
the Frome Monymusk Land Company, to the Sugar Industry Cooperatives, to the National Sugar Company, to the Sugar Company of Jamaica! The attempt to privatise these entities in the 1990s was doomed to failure, as the will to provide the resources necessary to restore the run-down farms and factories did not exist and I heard Cliff Cameron say that Government failed to give the industry the help it needed at that critical time when the financial sector and other businesses were collapsing.
As to the present state of the industry, the major source of failure stems from the National Sugar Company. Not only has the productivity on their farms been appalling, but their failure to maintain the factories, has spelled disaster for cane farmers.
Let us look at the composition of the board of directors of the Sugar Company of Jamaica. Where are the expertise and experience in sugar cane agriculture and sugar manufacture? Where is the track record in successful business management? When Government resorts to bankers and bureaucrats to run an industry as complex as sugar, the prescription is disaster. Many of us saw it coming!
ABUSE AND POOR MANAGEMENT
One would be reluctant to write a blueprint for the future of an enterprise that has been subject to so much abuse and poor management, and for which so many reports have been written. Survival now is the buzz-word. Those who have succeeded where others have failed should be given every incentive to increase their production. Government will be obliged to assist with price support where needed until some measure of stability is attained. For example, the loopholes where refined sugar is illegally sold on the local market at prices lower than raw sugar, should be closed. This deprives the sugar industry of much needed additional revenue from the indispensable local market.
Government does not display the will or the guts to remove these obstacles to progress.
I am, etc.,
KEN NEWMAN
Linstead
