Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Fish­eries and Min­ing, Floyd Green is en­cour­ag­ing lo­cal farm­ers to re­turn to sug­ar­cane pro­duc­tion amid pos­i­tive growth sig­nals in the sec­tor.

The de­vel­op­ments in­clude a US$1-mil­lion in­vest­ment by Pan Caribbean Sug­ar Com­pa­ny in the mech­a­ni­sa­tion of the Frome Sug­ar Fac­to­ry ahead of the start of the new har­vest­ing sea­son.

In ad­di­tion, a new com­pa­ny has ex­pressed in­ter­est in es­tab­lish­ing sug­ar op­er­a­tions in Ja­maica, the Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed.

Min­is­ter Green, who was speak­ing dur­ing a tour of the Frome fac­to­ry in West­more­land, said that farm­ers and man­u­fac­tur­ers are cur­rent­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the high­est sug­ar prices in decades, mak­ing the sec­tor in­creas­ing­ly prof­itable.

As such, he is op­ti­mistic about the in­dus­try’s fu­ture resur­gence.

“I am now say­ing to farm­ers, in­vest in farm­ing and go back in­to sug­ar-cane pro­duc­tion be­cause (Pan Caribbean) has raised their ef­fi­cien­cy, they have looked at the price of cane and now it is prof­itable,” he not­ed.

Pan Caribbean has ac­quired new agri­cul­tur­al and har­vest­ing equip­ment to mod­ernise op­er­a­tions at the Frome fac­to­ry.

The in­vest­ment is part of a broad­er strat­e­gy to en­sure the sus­tain­abil­i­ty and re­silience of sug­ar.

Min­is­ter Green not­ed that the ex­pen­di­ture fol­lows an agree­ment with the Min­istry, which pro­vid­ed sup­port to farm­ers to trans­port sug­ar cane to the Frome fac­to­ry.

“We would have now spo­ken to [Pan Caribbean] about pro­vid­ing sup­port di­rect­ly to the farm­ers in terms of in­puts, but more im­por­tant­ly, help­ing them with the mech­a­nised har­vesters they now have so they can be­come more ef­fi­cient,” he point­ed out.

“So, they are en­cour­ag­ing more farm­ers to re­pur­pose their field, get back out there, and more than that, they are will­ing to pro­vide the sup­port,” he added.

He not­ed that some lo­cal farm­ers are al­ready show­ing re­newed in­ter­est in sug­ar-cane cul­ti­va­tion with re­quests for leased lands to ex­pand pro­duc­tion.

These height­ened ac­tiv­i­ties sig­nal pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments in the sec­tor, Min­is­ter Green said.

More than 2,500 hectares of sug­ar cane are ready for har­vest­ing this sea­son, al­though pro­duc­tion has been im­pact­ed by Hur­ri­cane Beryl and rains as­so­ci­at­ed with Trop­i­cal Storm Rafael.

Pan Caribbean’s Chair­man and Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO), Zudui Zhang, ac­knowl­edged the weath­er-re­lat­ed chal­lenges but not­ed that the com­pa­ny is de­ter­mined to move for­ward.

He un­der­scored that the com­pa­ny is fo­cused on im­prov­ing pro­duc­tion ra­tios with the new equip­ment and has in­di­cat­ed that pos­i­tive re­sults could lead to ad­di­tion­al in­vest­ments.

“We need to join hands to­geth­er – the [pri­vate sec­tor], gov­ern­ment, the com­mu­ni­ty and our farm­ers,” Zhang said.

KINGSTON, Ja­maica, Jan 11, CMC –

CMC/ed/2024