Cane Farmers Ask for Start of Sugar Crop to be Delayed

The Sugar Cane Crop is scheduled to commence on December fourteenth but during a recent stakeholders meeting, cane farmers asked that it be delayed. They say the rains have flooded a large number of cane fields and ninety-nine percent of the sugar roads are impassable making it nearly impossible for farmers to reach their fields. Farmers are also concerned about cane quality, a lower quality of cane means less money. They say that their crop has soaked up the floodwaters, lowering the purity of the cane.  A.S.R./B.S.I. says they are ready at the mill, but farmers say they cannot deliver under certain conditions. Minister of Agriculture, Food Security and Enterprise Jose Abelardo Mai say that the farmers are concerned primarily about road conditions, field conditions and cane quality. He says that delaying the start of the crop is something that must be given careful thought.

Jose Abelardo Mai

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture, Food Security and Enterprise

“The sugar road, we will be discussing today how we will fix those. The contractors have made an assessment of the sugar roads. The surveyors are suppose to start shortly and two, the quality of sugar cane, I understand they are testing and that the purity right now seems to be borderline, eighty, eighty one. The minimum purity you want is eighty one if you have more then that is better yet. But because it has rained so much, the plant has so much water that the borderline right now, the purity right now is at eighty one percent. Bricks I understand is at seventeen and eighteen.  But as the days progress and it doesn’t continue raining and the cold front comes in that suppose to improve the quality. The soil suppose to be little drier and that give us time to fix the sugar roads because you can’t fix the sugar roads if it is raining so those are the three limiting factors right now as we speak. If you do sampling at random and the majority of sugar cane is mature or wherever you begin harvesting is mature then we could start harvesting given the fact that the sugarcane is mature. You don’t want to start harvesting sugarcane that is immature because your quality will be horrible and when your quality if horrible your famers lose money. Secondly, if you harvest right now and the ground is wet, the cost of harvesting increases. You continue damage already deteriorated roads. So you don’t want to do that.”