June 22 is the date Europe has set to start formal debate on a new sugar regime, which will likely lead to a significant reduction in the price of sugar just over a year later.

Minister of agriculture, Roger Clarke, informed the House of Representatives Tuesday that on that date, the director-general of agriculture in the European Commission will formally put in legislative form a proposal to radically change the regime in the union.

He said that it is expected to be in line with what her predecessor had proposed in a communication in July 2004 which, among other things, called for a significant reduction in the price paid in euro for sugar and for the reduction to be effected over a two-year period starting July 2006.

“The suggested cut is the method the Europeans expect to use to reduce the EU’s sugar surplus, by driving many of the EU producers out of sugar,” Clarke explained. “The EU has ran afoul of the WTO for putting its surplus sugar on the world market at a price well below its cost of production via subsidies to its producers.”

He said that the impact of the proposal is expected to create severe hardships on many European producers, and because of the way in which Jamaica’s treaty with Europe for the supply of local sugar is structured under the sugar protocol, the island will also be adversely affected.

“Europe is expected to put in place an elaborate compensation package which will, to a great extent, satisfy any losses, that their European producers face,” Clarke said. “On the other hand, there has been very little indication that they propose, in a meaningful way, to deal with the consequences to ACP producers.”

He said that there has been extensive lobbying by his ministry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and the Sugar Industry Authority (SIA) since the communication of 2004.

“It is always easy for people to say get rid of sugar, but I had to announce the closure of Hampden, since then the only time that I have been able to go to Hampden is by night. I have to creep through Hampden at night,” he said. “If they were to catch me, I would have to tell that the MP encouraged me to close it. That’s the only way I would probably survive.”

He said that the sugar industry still had a critical role to play in rural development as well as stemming the tide of rural urban drift.

He said that the Government has a serious problem. This year is going to be one of the lowest in sugar production in 60 years. The country, he said, should brace itself for the consequences.

balfordh@jamaicaobserver.com