WESTERN BUREAU – Sixty-three year-old Renford Reid has basically made a good life from harvesting sugar cane. So too has Birdian Ellis-Campbell. Both, for more than 40 years, have used the money they earned from the crop in their village of Virgin’s Valley in Somerton, St James, to sustain and educate their families.

So, the Government’s announcement on December 10 that it intended to close the Hampden sugar factory in neighbouring Trelawny because it was no longer viable, came as a huge blow to both senior citizens.

“Bwoy it rough. Mi nuh know how mi and mi family a go manage if the factory nuh reopen,” Reid, who has eight children and an ailing wife, told the Sunday Observer last Thursday.

While he appeared resigned to the factory’s closure, Ellis-Campbell was visibly upset and said she was prepared to participate in any protest action that would result in its reopening.

“Mi know di value of cane because mi grow seven pickney and 24 grand pickney out a it,” Ellis-Campbell declared.

The anger and concern expressed by Ellis-Campbell and Reid represent the feelings of the residents of Hampden’s neighbouring districts.

And Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke, who announced the sugar factory’s closure, has taken the bulk of their criticism.

“Last year he (Clarke) told us at a meeting that the factory at Hampden would remain open until a new state-of-the-art factory was built in Trelawny,” Ellis-Campbell said. “That new factory, he said, would be able to process all the canes in the parish. And now, him close the factory; what him expect us fi do?, thief or go a poor house?

Clarke could not be contacted to respond to Ellis-Campbell’s allegation. However, in his statement explaining the reason for what he described as a “difficult but necessary” decision, he said that the Government was “in no position to invest in. or to provide sovereign guarantee for” the construction of a new sugar factory in Trelawny as has been proposed by cane farmers.

In defending his decision to shut down Hampden and to divert the sugar cane it used to process to the Long Pond factory, also in Trelawny, Clarke disclosed that Hampden had debts of over $1.6 billion and would require a government subsidy of $100 million to process next year’s sugar cane harvest.

He also said that the factory had lost $458 million in the five-year period leading to 2002, and revealed that this year the Government had spent $100 million to keep the factory afloat. Hampden, he added, would also have required up to $400 million in new investments to bring its old machinery to a minimum level of efficiency.

According to Clarke, the administration was faced with two choices: either to continue operating Long Pond and Hampden estates with continuing losses of taxpayers’ money, or to merge the operations of both factories to effect cost reduction and efficiency in the shortest possible time.

He said that with the consolidation of the milling operations of both factories, the estimated operational losses have been calculated at a total of $44 million for both factories, despite the Government’s decision to absorb the additional transportation cost to farmers whose cane was previously milled at Hampden, but will now have to go to Long Pond.

Said Clarke: “The decision to rationalise the operations of the two factories in Trelawny will result in improved efficiency in the overall milling operations, based on the higher throughput to the single factory. In addition, the closure will allow for greater focus to be placed on the operations of the distillery, which is currently being upgraded to facilitate enhanced efficiency in Hampden’s rum manufacturing enterprise…”

But cane farmers insist that Long Pond does not have the capacity to produce all the cane in the parish and have rejected the Government’s proposal to pay subsidies for three years to offset additional transportation expenses.

The farmers said they are also very sceptical about Clarke’s announcement that the Government plans to expand the rum distillery and to significantly increase the number of hectares under sugar cane cultivation at Hampden.

“Wi can’t trust the politicians, dem sey one thing and then dem do another thing,” Ellis-Campbell seethed.

Businessman, Winston Walker, who operates a successful bar and grocery store in Dumfries, a community which borders the 1,700-acre Hampden estate, told the Sunday Observer that he has been having sleepless nights since the announced closure of the factory.

“I can’t sleep at nights. The situation is distressing,” said Walker, who used his redundancy payment from the Bata Shoe Company in 1985 to start his business.

Walker, who now employs four persons full time, said if the factory was not reopened he would have no choice but to close his business.

“My business is dependent on the Hampden workers and cane farmers. When they get their cheques, they come here and change them and then they make their purchases. When they are in business, I am in business,” Walker explained.

“But right now, things really look gloomy where the cane farmers and workers are concerned. I don’t even see the cane farmers taking their cane to the Long Pond Sugar factory. It is just going to cost too much, so the farmers will make no money,” he said.

Walker also believes that the fallout in employment as a result of the closure will result in an increase in criminal activities and social unrest in the Dumfries community.

“Right now, wi don’t have much crime in the area, but God help us,” he said. “There are now going to be a lot of idle hands around, so no doubt some will turn to illegal activities.”

Like Walker, businesswoman Euphemia Chen, who has been operating a grocery shop for nearly 30 years, said she would be forced out of business if the factory was not reopened.

Chen’s grocery shop is strategically located in front of the Hampden sugar factory and does thriving business during the cropping season, particularly on Fridays when the farmers, truck operators, field workers and factory workers collect their pay.

Sources close to Hampden told the Sunday Observer that during the cropping season, the estate paid out more than $9 million weekly to the various sugar workers in the area.

“Just imagine what is going to happen when that money is taken out of circulation in the communities as a result of the closure. It is going to be disaster,” said Lynden Peart, a cane farmer for more than three decades.

Dennis Campbell, a teacher at the Muschette Comprehensive High School in Trelawny, said he believed that the closure would result in a drop in attendance at schools in several communities in St James and Trelawny.

“A lot of students whose parents depend solely on the Hampden estate will no longer be able to afford to send their children to school on a regular basis,” Campbell said.

“They will have no money to do so,” he added.

An official close to the Hampden estate, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Sunday Observer that there are roughly 50 communities that rely heavily on the estate for a source of income.

According to the official, the closure of the factory will convert these communities into ghost towns.

“Whenever a sugar factory is closed, there is also a fallout in the area. There is an urban drift and the communities always find it very difficult to recover,” he explained.

“Take the Grays Inn Sugar Factory in St Mary, for example, which was closed in 1984. Right now, several communities in that parish are still trying to recover from the impact of the closure,” the official said.

“Islington, Annotto Bay and other communities are still struggling, despite the introduction of bananas,” he added.

Last Thursday, more than 200 factory workers at Hampden received their redundancy notices from the Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ), a subsidiary of the Government. The workers were also paid a total of over $7.5 million in lieu of notice and were promised redundancy payments by the end of March.

Leroy Wilson was among the workers who received payment of approximately $25,000 on Thursday.

He, too, is opposed to the closure of the factory and the way it was done.

“Dem close the factory suddenly on us. Dem didn’t even consult us before dem do it,” Wilson charged.

He figures that, at age 43, and with his fair amount of education he might be able to get another job soon.

“But, it is the workers dem that not educated I am sorry for,” he added.

Carlene Innis, who worked at the estate for more than five years, said her redundancy payment will not be able to go very far.

“The redundancy money will not help me, so I will have to look another job to support my children,” she said.

Innis, also believes that there will be social and economic pressures on many of the communities that rely heavily on the Hampden estate for an income.

But, manager of the Trelawny Co-operative Credit Union in Falmouth, Winston Tomlinson, said he is yet to determine if there will be any economic fallout as a result of the closure.

“I would have to carry out a careful analysis of the situation,” the banker said.

“But, if most of the workers at the factory are old and nearing retirement age, then the redundancy payment would benefit them, because they would get a lump sum and plus, they would go on pension if they reach pension age,” he explained.

“On the other hand, if most of the affected workers are young, then they would have to seek employment somewhere else or be absorbed somewhere else on the estate,” he added.

Tomlinson said, too, one needed to bear in mind that the SCJ planned to increase the cultivation of cane on the estate and to expand the distillery.

“If this is done, there might not be any economic fallout,” he added.

Until then, though, residents like Renford Reid will continue to lament Hampden’s closure.

“Sugar cane is the main thing that wi live off here, and without the factory at Hampden operating, mi really don’t know what mi a go do,” Reid said.

“One thing for sure though, mi would have to come out a sugar cane if the factory nuh reopen. But which other crop mi can go into,?” he asked.

“It is only sugar cane grow here.”