By Erica James-King, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
WITH THREE weeks to go before this year's sugar crop comes to an end, the Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ) is confident that it will meet its projected target of 129,000 tonnes of sugar on government-run estates.
"We expect to meet and even surpass our target on SCJ-run sugar estates," disclosed Livingstone Morrison, SCJ's chief executive officer, while attributing the good showing in the sugar industry to favourable weather conditions, increased volume in cane supplies and increased efficiency at sugar estates.
IMPROVED PERFORMANCE
According to Mr. Morrison, the overhauling of some factories and improved crop husbandry were paying off with the improved performance on sugar estates.
"At St. Thomas Sugar Company where crop will come to an end about the end of this month, we are already seeing 13,000 tonnes of sugar produced for the 2003/2004 crop, while during 2002/2003 they only managed to produce a total of 9,000 tonnes of sugar," said Mr. Morrison. He indicated that Bernard Lodge sugar estate also recorded some significant gains, moving from a total of 19,000 tonnes sugar in 2002/2003 to 22,000 tonnes in 2003/2004. Although the islandwide crop remains incomplete, the combined production on private and public sector run estates have already risen to 182,000 tonnes of sugar for this crop, which is 30,000 tonnes of sugar more than the total produced for the last sugar crop.
Last year's output of 152,072 tonnes of sugar was the worst the industry had produced in 50 years.
But although output from the estates has increased, several cane farmers are not pleased with the efficiency of some sugar factories.
At Long Pond Sugar estate where crop is not expected to end before August 7, the farmers are fearful that 40 per cent of the estate canes and a smaller percentage of the canes of small farmers might not be harvested before crop comes to an end.
The Long Pond/Vale Royal Cane Farmers Association (LPVCFA), says some mechanical and personnel problems at the factory caused the delays in harvesting of cane.
DIFFICULTIES
"The crop started late because the repairs to the factory were not completed early, but we also had some problems because of mechanical and efficiency difficulties," Delroy Anderson, Chairman of the LPVCFA told The Gleaner in an interview. Mr. Anderson, however, confessed that there has been less 'downtime' at the factory in recent times, because of some changes which have been effected. "There has been great improvement at Long Pond factory in the last four weeks, since a team of engineers has been brought in from Frome, to assist Long Pond with its preventative maintenance programme."
Long Pond also suffered from industrial problems during this crop as strike action by cane cutters caused an eight-day shutdown of the factory.
