Frome Sugar Factory in Westmoreland began reaping for the 2008 crop last December. - File

Frome sugar estate is no longer burning cane for harvest but has started reaping green cane to improve the quality of the crop and cut environmental damage.

It ends the practice as old as the sugar industry itself, dictated by world demands for more environment-friendly manufacturing and production processes.

Under the old system, farmers burned cut cane lying in the fields to destroy the leaves and to fertilise the soil with ash.

But the increased global demand for green cane costs the Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ) less energy to process and stays fresher longer.

The European Union, the chief market for Jamaica's struggling sugar industry, has called for all imports to be derived from green cane by 2010, said Aston Smith, vice president of operations for the Frome plant, located in Westmoreland.

Frome is the largest of Jamaica's five government-owned estates run by the SCJ.

This year, Frome, which started reaping in December, is projecting 50,090 tonnes of sugar or just under half of the 111,867 tonnes that the five factories are expected to churn out in the 2008 crop year ending July.

Slight decline

Last year, the Government factories and private operators produced 164,500 tonnes of sugar, but a slight decline to 161,867 tonnes is anticipated for the overall sector this year.

The environmental benefits of the new process include a reduction in burning-related air pollution and less need for chemicals to kill weeds that sprout in the burned fields.

"Within three to four days, the burned cane starts to spoil," said Lucius Jackson, a Westmoreland farmer who provides cane to the factory. "The green cane will last up to six days, and the juice stands up just the same."

Jamaica's state-owned sugar company has been squeezed by deep cuts in EU subsidies for producers in the Caribbean, Africa and the Pacific and will be privatised later this year after years of amassing debt which reportedly tops $13 billion.

The Government is selling its five sugar factories, but not the cane lands.

In 2005, the Jamaican Govern-ment announced a plan to restructure the sugar industry to focus production more on ethanol and molasses.

But the majority of Jamaica's cane harvest still is used to produce sugar.

- Gleaner and AP reports