.Trelawny cane farmers brace for more losses

.Transport subsidy ends next yr

WESTERN BUREAU – Cane farmers in Trelawny, who say they have lost millions since the government closed the Hampden sugar factory in 2002, are worried that their losses will escalate even further when a subsidy that now defrays some of their transportation costs comes to an end next year.

Industry players estimate that the government picked up a $7 million tab over the last seven years, the additional cost of transporting cane to Long Pond which was offered as the alternative to Hampden.

But cane farmers maintain that even with the subsidy, they lost millions of dollars. They are worried that their losses will balloon even further next year, when they will have to absorb all the additional cost of trucking their cane to Long Pond.

“If they are subsiding the transportation costs (now) and we are losing so much, can you imagine what will happen when it is removed?” asked former chairman of the Hampden Cane Farmers’ Association Aldane Barnett. “Most of the farmers will be out of business.”

“We the cane farmers are suffering,” he added.

A cane farmer for the last two decades, Barnett estimated that he and his peers have lost more than $100 million over the last two years.

“During the first year of the closure, for instance, I alone lost more than $1 million because the factory at Long Pond was giving problems and could not take all of the cane,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Harvested cane was left to rot in the fields, Barnett added, while some farmers were not given permits to reap their crop. All this, he said, was linked to the inefficiencies at the Long Pond factory.

According to a report on the 2003/2004 sugar crop in Trelawny, which was presented at the All-Island Cane Farmers’ Association’s (AICFA) annual general meeting in Kingston earlier this month, roughly 3,200 tonnes of cane was not harvested during the crop. Of that amount, farmers who once supplied cane to the Hampden factory accounted for 1,300 tonnes.

Before the start of the crop, Long Pond had set itself a target of 13,000 tonnes of sugar. The factory, however, only managed to produce 10,000 tonnes.

“If all of these canes were reaped, we could have made the 13,000 tonnes of sugar that was projected, but because of the inefficiency of the factory, we didn’t,” said a sugar industry source.

Last week, Livingstone Morrison, the chief executive officer at the Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ) which operates Long Pond,

declined to give details of the factory’s performance during the 2003/2004 crop. However, he said some of the problems experienced had included low steam generation and poor cane preparation.

But Morrison argued that those problems were being addressed, and he was confident that the factory should perform satisfactorily during the upcoming crop, which is expected to start in January.

That is of little comfort to some cane farmers who, Barnett said, are now unable to service their loans and face the real risk of being hauled before the courts by financial institutions who want to recover loans used to plant their crop.

Over the past two years, the number of farmers involved in sugar cane cultivation has dwindled significantly, translating into a sharp decline in cane production, he maintained.

Industry officials estimate that at the end of 2002, there were 500 cane farmers who supplied cane to the Hampden factory; but with the switch to Long Pond, that number has since fallen to 300. The amount of cane grown has also fallen, moving from 38,600 tonnes during the 2001/2002 crop to 28,000 tonnes this year.

Hampden was closed in 2002 as the government moved to staunch the financial hemorrhaging that had left $1.6 billion in debt. In 2002, agriculture minister Roger Clarke said the state had already spent $100 million to keep the factory afloat and explained that it would have taken another $100 million to process the 2002/2003 sugar cane harvest.

Minister Clarke put Hampden’s losses, in the five year-period leading up to 2002, at $458 million. The administration was faced with two choices: to either continue operating Long Pond and Hampden estates with more losses of taxpayers’ money, or merge the operations of both factories to cut costs and boost efficiency in the shortest possible time.

The government chose the latter option. Part of the deal was that the state would pick up the tab, for three years, for the additional transportation costs that farmers would have to face as they trucked their cane to Long Pond for milling.

Last week, neither minister Clarke nor the SCJ’s Morrison could say how much the government has shelled out for the transportation subsidy to date. Now, as the deadline for the expiration of the government help looms, the cane farmers are becoming increasingly worried that even more of them will soon be out of business.

But chairman of the AICFA Allan Rickards is confident that cane growers will rebound.

“Some of them have gone out of cane because they were uncertain about transportation, but they will come back because the price for cane is now good and because the industry is now stable,” he argued.

Rickards is bullish on sugar and has, for many years, pushed for the construction of a modern sugar factory in Trelawny, which would be capable of producing more than 60,000 tonnes of refined sugar per year. It would also produce dry ice, yeast, vinegar, and methane gas, as well as facilitate the co-generation of electricity for sale to the national grid.

“We have by no means given up on the new factory. In fact we are planning in far more detail than was even done before, in terms of our approach to the project,” Rickards said.

He predicted that within the next few years the country would see a revolution in the sugar industry.

“We are dedicated to the proposition that the industry is going to have a rebirth in Trelawny and we are confident that the industry will not die,” he stressed.

But businesses in the parish, which depend heavily on the patronage of workers employed in the sugar industry, are not as optimistic. All they can see now is a fall-off in sales and it is hard to be enthusiastic about the future. Winston Walker, who operates the largest grocery store and bar in Dumfries, a community bordering the 1,700-acre Hampden estate, is among those feeling the pinch.

He estimated that his sales have fallen by more than 25 per cent over the last two years. He has had to lay off some of his workers to keep his business afloat. “What really help me to stay in business is the fact that the people who live in the community and work in Montego Bay (14 miles away) have decided to patronise me. If it wasn’t for them, I would have to close down long time,” Walker said.

Euphemia Chen, who for nearly 30 years operated a grocery shop in front of the Hampden sugar factory, hasn’t fared as well. She closed her doors less than six months after the factory was shut down.

“Sales were really bad. In fact, after the factory closed I was making less than 20 per cent of what I was making when the factory was open,” she said, explaining that the bulk of her sales used to come from the more than 500 workers who were employed at the factory and other areas of the vast estate.

More than 400 of the estate’s employees were axed after the sugar processing plant was closed.

Shortly after the closure, the state-owned SCJ announced what many saw as an ambitious plan to redevelop Hampden. The multi-million dollar development plan, which requires more than $300 million over a three-year period, included:

. the planting of 1,300 hectares of sugar cane;

. the refurbishing and modernisation of the distillery;

. the cultivation of 2,900 hectares of crop other than sugar cane; and

. the development of the estate as a tourist attraction.

Industry players hope that the project, which is being implemented on a phased basis, will provide employment for many of the displaced Hampden workers.

But so far, the project has only created employment for roughly 100 persons. However, the SCJ’s Morrison believes that the project is moving along satisfactorily.

“We are progressing nicely,” he told the Sunday Observer, pointing to a number of achievements at the estate since the project began 15 months ago.

“We now have contractual arrangements for two trailer loads of pumpkins per month, and we have completed the planting of 25 hectares of that crop,” he said.

He added that plans are now in place to plant another 75 hectares in the near future and listed other achievements as:

. the completion of the refurbishing and modernisation of the distillery; and

. a 100 per cent increase in sugar cane yields on the estate over the last two years as a result of a massive replanting and resuscitation programme.

The SCJ boss said there are also plans to undertake a major pepper project, and discussions are under way to establish a tourist attraction on the estate.

But the feel-good effect has not trickled down to those who have to live in the area, those who once relied heavily on the income generated from the Hampden sugar factory.

“Bwoy, nutten nah gwan here now, tings slow bad,” said an elderly man, who up to two years ago sold bottles of roots tonic to workers employed to the Hampden sugar factor.

“It really rough,” he added.

cummingsm@jamaicaobserver.com