Ashford W. Meikle, Staff Reporter
Workers employed to the Monymusk Estate in Clarendon remove overgrown weeds from a cane field. - RUDOLPH BROWN/CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
THE DIRECTOR general of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), Dr. Wesley Hughes, says the cut in the preferential prices paid by the European Union for Jamaican sugar could provide the catalyst for the economic development in rural areas.
"The sugar industry is important and could form a linchpin around which we transform the rural economy. We must train and involve the people in the industry into something else and understand that the transformation will come over a very long period of time," said Hughes in a rare aside at the agency's press conference on the quarterly review of the economy this week at the PIOJ's offices in New Kingston.
Describing Jamaica's sugar industry as "one that has never been profitable as a whole and, in some instances, being marginally viable at best," the director general suggested that the country needs to focus on educating the children of the sugar workers, a process which has to be consistent, focused and done over "a long period of time."
It can't be that we dump money into giving them a better file and a better machete. That is not the future. The future of sugar, if we are going to continue in it, must be combined harvesting, employing far less people and higher salaries."
REDUCTION IN THE PRICE
Under the recently negotiated Sugar Reform Policy conducted with the EC, there will be 36 per cent reduction in the price of sugar coming from Jamaica and other ACP countries. The new trade arrangements now mean that high cost ACP producers now have to compete with Brazil and Australia.
The first price reduction begins next month with a five per cent cut.
PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT
While he admitted that the loss of the preferential treatment posed a huge challenge, the director-general suggested, "the fact that we are much more certain should take out some of the irrational and emotional debate [about] sugar and the sugar cane industry."
The director-general argued that with the 36 per cent cut in the price paid for sugar the industry, unless it produced other value-added products, could not survive another 15 years.
"I am not suggesting or foreseeing a cut in sugar cane production [but] I look around and see the possibilities around ethanol, around energy in general, co-generation, rum production, other spin-offs, or subsidiary production in the industry [present] a significant degree of hope to entrepreneurs, local and foreign."
He noted that for the transformation to take place the country would have to develop its infrastructure, particularly it's roads.
