Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Dr Christopher Tufton (left), and Ambassador Marco Mazzocchi Alemanni, head of the European Union delegation to Jamaica, in attendance at the opening ceremony for the Accompanying Measures for former Sugar Protocol Countries regional seminar held at the Ritz-Carlton Rose Hall in Montego Bay, St James, Thursday. (Jamaica Gleaner photo)
(Jamaica Gleaner) Jamaica is casting off the historical sugar cane industry, embracing cane production instead, as it refocuses scarce resources on exploiting all aspects of the product’s value chain.
This according to Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Dr Christopher Tufton, who said on Thursday that the island is working towards establishing a wide cross section of revenue streams from the cultivation of cane, including production of straw, bulk and refined sugar, molasses for supply to the rum industry and ethanol for the energy sector.
Tufton was addressing the opening ceremony of a regional seminar put on by the European Union’s Accompanying Measures for former Sugar Protocol Countries (AMSP) organisation, held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montego Bay, St James.
The agriculture minister said, though a challenging process, the country was shedding the historical practice in which colonies were used for growing sugar cane which would then be shipped to Europe and refined.
“I’m not saying that the sugar producing countries in the Caribbean didn’t derive significant benefits from the historical arrangement,” Tufton stressed. “What I’m saying is that, on the value chain, wealth production was focused more on the European end, since it was able to refine the product.”
Guaranteed markets
Noting that the shift from cane production has become even more imperative as the sugar cane industry is no longer predictable, he declared that the days of guaranteed markets under sugar protocols are over.
“It is to our peril if we fail to restructure,” Tufton warned, noting that by 2015, Caribbean countries will be called on to compete based on price and creativity in offering competitive valued-added products.
The minister issued a challenge for Caribbean sugar producers to rid themselves of the commodity mentality.
“We must also collaborate to ensure that there is sustainability beyond the predictability that we enjoyed under the previous guaranteed-market arrangement, and view the change as a valuable thing,” he said.
