CLARKS TOWN, Trelawny – Agriculture minister Roger Clarke has instructed Sugar Industry Authority (SIA) chairman Ambassador Derrick Heaven to hold talks with the state-owned Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ) in an effort to assist farmers in sections of Trelawny and St James, whose three year transportation subsidy has ended.

“I have asked Ambassador Derrick Heaven to speak with the SCJ to see what alternate arrangement can be made to assist the farmers,” Clarke told the Observer yesterday.

Last week, chairman of the All-Island Jamaica Cane Farmers’ Association Allan Rickards instructed the more than 200 cane farmers not to sell their cane to the Long Pond Sugar Company, until a transportation subsidy was reinstated.

Up to three years ago, the farmers were selling their cane to the Hampden Sugar estate, but following the closure of the estate’s processing plant in 2002, a subsidy was introduced to compensate farmers for the additional transportation costs associated with transporting the product to the Long Pond processing plant.

The subsidy came to an end at the conclusion of the 2004/2005 crop.

Yesterday, Livingstone Morrison, SCJ’s president and chief executive officer (CEO), argued that although the Trelawny Sugar Company – operators of the Long Pond plant – had fulfilled its obligation under the subsidy arrangement, it was willing to examine the concern of the affected farmers.

“While the Trelawny Sugar Company has fulfilled its obligation from a regulatory standpoint, the company is prepared to consider the impact of the subsidy on future cane supply from the Hampden area, and to take the necessary steps to protect its continued interest in cane from there,” said Morrison.

He added that he had previously asked representatives of the Hampden Cane Farmers’ Association, which represents the farmers, to make representation ‘by way of a letter’ in relation to the subsidy requested, stating the reason why it should be granted.

Additionally, Morrison said, he had instructed Kingsley Clarke who manages the Trelawny Sugar Company, to assist the farmers in preparing the submission.

The SCJ boss, however, declined to outline the measures that are likely to be implemented to assist the farmers.

“We are going to do what is necessary to facilitate our best interest but I can’t say to you that ‘this’ is what we are going to do, but we have already done a lot of things to assist the farmers,” he said.

Meanwhile, Morrison has suggested that the farmers in the Hampden area have defied Rickards’ call for a boycott of the Long Pond processing plant.

“The farmers have not cited the subsidy as an issue impacting on the supply of cane to the factory. In fact, the farmers’ cane delivery over the past week has shown some improvement,” he argued.

According to Morrison, over the past four weeks farmers from the Hampden area have delivered roughly 1,650 tonnes of cane to Long Pond, of which 230 tonnes were delivered on Monday.