By Balford Henry, News EditorAS THE sugar industry prepares for the start of the 2002/2003 crop on Saturday, the cost of production has become the main point of concern for both the employers and the workers.
According to the executive chairman of the Sugar Company of Jamaica, Ambassador Derrick Heaven, certain overriding considerations and developments have made it imperative for the cost of production for the local industry to be further reduced.
Mr. Heaven acknowledged that the cost had dropped US 35 cents per pound to US 24 cents per pound recently. But, he said, it was necessary for it to be further reduced to 15-18 US cents, in the short term.
He said that this was necessary primarily because of international challenges, including: the European Union's initiative to give access to several less developed countries other than the ACP; the extension of the European Union by at least 10 other countries, including former Soviet States which are sugar producers themselves; and the recent challenge by Brazil and Australia, through the WTO, for access to the European market.
Ambassador Heaven said that the 13 million tonnes of sugar produced by Brazil, the four million tonnes from Australia and the additional sugar from the ten former Soviet states would suppress the price ACP countries, including Jamaica, obtain for their raw sugar.
He also mentioned a number of local factors which were adversely affecting the sector. These included: illegal cane burning; the destruction of canes by animals; the adverse weather patterns; throughput in the factories due to the short supply of canes from the estates and the cane farmers; the high interest rates; and inadequate working capital needed to purchase spare parts to repair the factories on a timely basis.
He said, however, that in spite of the multiplicity of problems, an extensive upgrading of the factories, especially in terms of social facilities for the workers, had begun and education, training and skill upgrading programmes would be pursued during 2003.
Ambassador Heaven was speaking at a one-day seminar for over 104 sugar industry union delegates at the Golf View Hotel in Mandeville last Saturday, staged by the three unions representing workers in the industry - the Bustamante Industrial Trades Union (BITU), the National Workers Union (NWU) and the University and Allied Workers Union (UAWU).
NWU island supervisor, Vincent Morrison, blamed the situation in the industry mainly on the private owners to whom the industry had been divested prior to Government's re-emergence. He said that, in four years, they had accumulated debts of nearly five billion dollars.
Mr. Morrison mentioned six specific recommendations which, he said, were central to the success and revitalisation of the sector.
These were:
A continued and improved industrial relations climate.
An interest rate regime of not more than five per cent, for six years constant, to fund a massive replanting programme and also for the working capital needs of the sector.
That proceeds from sugar imports be restored to the industry and the establishment of a consolidated fund under the control of the Sugar Industry Authority dedicated solely to the industry's needs.
A team of industry/government representatives to deal with ACP/WTO issues.
Getting sugar communities more involved in the protection and the operations of the factories and cane growing areas.
The industry must become more environmentally proactive and for the workers to become involved in sugar cane production in a business form.
The seminar was also addressed by Dr. Earl Roberts, senior director, Sugar Industry Research Institute; Wycliffe Matthews, deputy island supervisor of the BITU; Professor Trevor Munroe, president of the UAWU; and Andrew Wright, member of the Board of the All-Island Jamaica Cane Farmers Association.
