With four weeks of harvesting left, the Guyana Sugar Corporation needs to make an additional 36,000 tonnes of sugar to meet its 2014 target.
The second crop thus far has seen just over 103,000 tonnes of sugar being produced and overall, to date, total production sits at 183,000 tonnes. Weekly, GuySuCo produces roughly 6,000-6,500 tonnes of sugar if all eight estates are grinding and with average worker turnout between 60-70 per cent. The industry has so far had exceptional weather that has allowed for weekly production targets to be met by multiple estates, especially the ones with more mechanisation.
The target was initially set at 278,752 tonnes of sugar in the 2013-2017 Strategic Plan but the figure was revised by Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy at the beginning of the year to 216,000 tonnes and finally set at 219,000 tonnes by current CEO Rajendra Singh when GuySuCo appeared before the National Assembly’s Eco-nomic Services Committee in July. Last year, the corporation produced a dismal 186,000 tonnes of sugar.
The state-controlled corporation has not disclosed its figures and has been criticised for its secrecy. To adequately address the state of the industry and the potential of GuySuCo to meet its revised 2014 target, the amount of cane on the ground needs to be revealed. GuySuCo has in the past been accused by critics of harvesting young canes.
The lack of planning continues to be of detriment to the industry. Komal Chand, the head of the Guyana Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) has been critical of GuySuCo’s assessment of the cane quality in the past. He told Stabroek News that GuySuCo needs to be providing more information in relation to the canes on the ground. He said that to understand how well equipped the industry is to meet its targets, the amount of cane and the quality needs to be known.
Last year he told Stabroek News that “look at the figures for the past ten years and you’ll see that the quality of the cane is not as good.” He said that the yield of the cane has fallen by 25 per cent because the replanting project has not been made a priority. Chand said that as a result, the industry will suffer, “they are not getting the cane per hectare which suggests that they are not getting the yield…you can’t sacrifice the replanting and expect to make targets.”
GuySuCo has been pushing the idea of private cane farmers to tackle the problems arising from the lack of agronomic care undertaken by the corporation itself. In August, GuySuCo expanded its private cultivation efforts at Uitvlugt. Singh had told Stabroek News that two additional farmers were in talks to utilise 500 hectares of land recently advertised for cultivation; this land is in addition to the already 1,000 hectares currently being utilised by private cane farmers for the estate.
The company’s CEO had stated that GuySuCo has 6000 hectares under cultivation. However for 2014, the Strategic Plan had proposed that industry wide planting was supposed to have reached 9560 hectares.
Additionally, the Plan proposed that cane yields per hectare should be 60.04 tonnes. However, for 2014 the corporation has not released information on the current ratio average. In 2012, the average was approximately 56.3 tonnes of cane per hectare.
For comparison Jamai-ca’s former Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke had stated that for the sugar industry, which became completely privatized in 2011, to be profitable and reap maximum benefits, this ratio has to be a minimum 80 tonnes per hectare.
Critics have long called for the state-owned corporation to be more transparent and to deliver on promises to provide the public with facts and figures. During his budget address earlier this year, Ramsammy had promised to distribute quarterly reports to the National Assembly on GuySuCo inclusive of key figures that would give an insight into the company’s ability to meet local, regional and contractual demands. To date, Ramsammy has not provided the Parliament with any of these quarterly reports.
