Once again sugar is in the news.
We are at that point in the calendar when we should be reaping the crop but this time the issue is not about the start of the crop, or about the amount of sugar which will be produced. Rather, the debate is about the future of the industry.
Last week, we heard from Dr Atlee Brathwaite that the industry was broke, a statement which we ought to have taken seriously. Dr Brathwaite knows the industry well, having spent several years with sugar and related aspects of the industry.
Now, we have news of an Inter-American Development Bank Strategic Assessment of the Sugar Cane Industry by a team of professionals who had been appointed to assess proposals on the restructuring of the industry.
The assessment does not make for comfortable reading, but to be forewarned is to be forearmed and we may yet be able to stem the tide of erosion and save or restructure the industry. What seems to be clear from the report is that doing nothing is not an option, since if nothing is done the industry will collapse in the “next three to five years”.
Fortunately for our country, the movement away from sugar to tourism-related projects on former sugar lands began in earnest some time ago, and many of us can remember when the Sandy Lane plantation occupied the lands on which the affluent and the rich now have their homes on the famous Sandy Lane housing development.
Such developments earn foreign exchange for our country, provide employment and help to provide the platform for much improved lifestyles of our people who in times past might have been toiling under the broiling sun without a guarantee of full employment.
There is, therefore, a case for recognizing the reality of the creeping death of sugar as a final product, because as the report shows “the gap between average sugar export prices and production costs is growing year by year, resulting in an increasing financial burden”.
Restructuring is, therefore, an urgent necessity, because some attention must be paid to stemming the flow of financial losses so that we may continue to earn the foreign exchange from the industry even in its fractured state; because the social costs of cessation of the industry would be significant.
It is estimated that 1 500 jobs would be lost and about 12 000 people would be adversely affected and so would the country’s identity and cultural heritage.
Successive Governments were therefore right to facilitate the shift by investors from the sugar industry and to support the initiative to push for investment in the provision of services.
Whether the former sugar lands have been developed for upscale luxury homes, or for condominiums, or for golf courses, the shift has been good for this country since the national revenue has been enhanced and jobs maintained.
Yet, we urge the most careful study by the authorities of the report, for a solution has to be found to the troubling question of the present profile of the remnant industry.
The use of technology may be of assistance as may be the diversification and development of by-products, but something has to be done to minimize losses and eventually produce profit.