The closure of the Appleton Sugar Factory in St Elizabeth and the limited operation of the Long Pond factory in Trelawny in 2016 hurt sugar production in Jamaica last year, the Sugar Industry Authority (SIA) has stated.

Information received by the Jamaica Observer showed that the initial projection for the 2015-2016 crop was 122,000 tonnes, but was revised to 87,000 tonnes. This target was missed, however, as the industry churned out 82,855 tonnes for 2016 — 4,145 less than expected.

“Production for the 2016 crop was severely impacted by the non-operation of the Appleton factory. For the 2015 crop, Appleton had contributed approximately 27,000 tonnes or 20.5 per cent of the overall production for the 2015 crop,” a response from the SIA stated.

The Appleton Sugar Factory ceased production last year when an injunction for its suspension of operations was obtained by fish-farming company Algix Jamaica Limited in January against J Wray & Nephew — operators of the plant.

Algix, in filing the injunction, claimed that Appleton was discharging effluent from the sugar factory that was killing its fish, an allegation that J Wray & Nephew denied.

“The late start of the Everglades Factory and the shortened sugar crop in that area (May 21 — September 4, 2016) also impacted overall sugar production for the crop. Everglades factory was only able to contribute 3,027.28 or 3.65 per cent toward the total production for 2016,” the statement said.

In addition to factory closures, SIA reasoned that poor juice quality, high conversion ratios, increased factory downtime due to weather, drought and illicit fires were other limiting factors.

The SIA disclosed that when the overall quality of canes delivered to factories was compared to the 2015 crop, the Jamaican Recoverable Cane Sugar (JRCS) — a measure of cane quality and an indicator of the amount of sugar that is recoverable from the cane — there was an 8.9 per cent decline, moving from an average of 10.01 JRCS to 9.12 JRCS.

“As a consequence, the conversion ratio of cane to sugar increased from 11.71 in 2015 to 13.49 in 2016. This means that for the 2016 crop, it required an additional 1.8 tonnes of cane to produce one tonne of sugar,” it said.

Increased rainfall in 2016 led to stops in factory production amounting to 5.6 per cent of total downtime. This represents a 99 per cent increase from the downtime in 2015. The rainfall, which increased exponentially over the last two years, negatively impacted the harvesting and delivery of canes to be processed.

“Lower cane supply to the factories was also influenced by the severe drought that affected the island in 2015, which would have been the cultivation period for canes which were harvested and processed during the 2016 crop. Excluding Appleton and Everglades, cane supply to the other facilities fell by almost 10 per cent for the 2016 crop,” the SIA stated.

Multiple illicit fires at the Frome Sugar Factory in Westmoreland during the crop season negatively impacted production. As a result of fires, the SIA explained that: “Canes were harvested before full maturity which resulted in poor cane quality. Canes were not harvested in a timely manner or not harvested at all due to the high volume of canes burnt illicitly.”

Domestic demand for sugar, according to the SIA, was met, where an average of roughly 47,000 tonnes of brown sugar was delivered last year. Internationally, half of the agreed 48,000 tonnes were supplied as stipulated in a contract with Tate & Lyle for the 2015/16 crop. The remainder will be delivered in 2017.

The target for this year’s crop is 96,000 tonnes of sugar from 1,344,000 tonnes of cane.

But the SIA listed some major concerns for the industry: illicit fires, depressed price of sugar on international market, declining cane supply, relatively high cost of cane production, challenges with ensuring traceability and pre-packaging of sugar.

Last September it was announced that the Appleton Sugar Factory would reopen this month.