AS Jamaica and other ACP countries fight to save their sugar industries from a massive price cut by the EU, their major buyer, at least one industry player is convinced that even if the deep price cut is averted, it will not be enough to save the industry right across the island.

Former chairman of the Long Pond Sugar Estates and Custos of Trelawny Roy Barrett, is convinced that Trelawny – a parish that was once home to two sugar factories – has no future in sugar.

“Even if they (EU) give us another moratorium, eventually the price will go down so we will just be buying time,” said Barrett, who was Long Pond’s chairman from 1990 to 1997.

Trelawny will never be able to cut its production costs enough to make sugar a viable industry, he said. “I don’t think that we can bring it to a productivity level that can make it competitive on the world market.”

Last month, the EU announced that it wants to slash, by 39 per cent, the price it pays sugar-producing ACP countries for the commodity, stripping these countries of the preferential treatment they have been receiving for the price of their sugar for more than 40 years.

The EU is hoping that the proposal will be approved at a meeting of farm ministers in Britain in November.

If it gets the nod, the proposal is expected to have a crippling effect on the island’s faltering sugar industry and could put thousands who work in the industry out of work. The sector directly employs about 40,000 people across the island.

Barrett, who made it clear that he was not calling for the entire country to get out of sugar cane production, noted that some factories – especially the ones that are privately-owned – have been doing fairly well. The same cannot be said for the factory in Trelawny.

Over the past five years, there has been a steady decline in sugar production at the state-run Long Pond Sugar Company, as well as the number of acres of land on which cane is grown.

Up to the 2000/2001 sugar crop, the parish’s two sugar factories – Long Pond and Hampden – produced roughly 20,000 tonnes of the sweetener.

But after the government closed down the loss-making Hampden plant in 2002, production fell to 10,000 tonnes during the 2003/2004 crop.

And at the end of the just-concluded 2004/2005 crop, the Long Pond processing plant produced roughly 5,000 tonnes of sugar.

But despite these falling numbers, Barrett’s call for the cessation of sugar cane cultivation in Trelawny runs contrary to the views of several industry officials who believe that despite the many challenges facing the sector, the industry can rebound.

“I think that with proper management we will be able to do much better and become competitive,” said Delroy Anderson, a vice-chairman of the All-Island Jamaica Cane Farmers (AIJCF).

According to Anderson, several crops – other than sugar cane – have been unsuccessfully tried in the Long Pond area.

“Seagrams Ltd of Canada, a company that once owned the Long Pond Estate, has tried a number of crops including corn and yams and it did not work,” stressed Anderson, who is also chairman of the Long Pond/Vale Royal Cane Farmers Association.

“The only thing that has been proven to do well on these lands is sugar cane. If you try to plant yams, as soon as you get a little dry weather, they burn up,” he explained.

But Barrett is convinced that the lands now occupied with sugar cane would best be used for growing other agricultural crops. The existing sugar factory should be transformed into an agro-processing plant, he said.

“Let us use these cane lands – which are prime agricultural lands – to go into something else, like agro-industry,” the Custos said.

He suggested the growing of yams, pumpkins and corn as viable alternatives to the cultivation of sugar cane.

The Custos maintained that the time was right for the phasing out of sugar cane in the parish.

“This is not a bad time for us to start the scaling down, which can be done over a three-year period because we have a number of planned developments for the parish,” he explained.

He was referring to the construction of the Greenfield Stadium near Falmouth, the $3.5-billion Harmony Cove project and the plan to develop Hampden Wharf, in Falmouth. These projects are all expected to come on-stream over the next few years.

“With these projects .some of the persons who were involved in sugar cane cultivation can become actors, dancers, landscapers, waiters, plumbers…..” the Trelawny Custos argued.

He pointed out, however, that it would be imprudent to cease sugar cane cultivation in the parish abruptly, as workers in the sector would need time to adjust to the change.

“The shock (if cultivation ceases abruptly) would create hardships on the people, so I think you need to give people who need training time to be trained,” he said.