PRESIDENT of the Upper Corentyne Chamber of Commerce, Abraham Subnauth has renewed his call for the freeing up of the sugarcane industry.According to Subnauth, legislation should be put in place to allow the private sector to grow, process and market sugarcane and sugarcane products, be it ethanol, bagasse or molasses.

He also noted that the industry should not be referred to as the ‘sugar industry’ but as the ‘sugarcane industry’.

The Upper Corentyne Chamber of Commerce President said cane farming in many parts of the world is big, lucrative business, and it is being done by the private sector and not the state.

He noted that one acre of sugar cane will produce a very realistic average of 8,800 pounds of sugar or 2,800 litres of ethanol, pointing out that at current market prices, this will give gross annually revenue of US$1,400 per acre with sugar and US$1,600 per acre with ethanol.

“Sugarcane has a very unique advantage as compared to other crops. With sugar cane you plant once and harvest 8-10 times, depending on your crop husbandry skills. So you only have tillage, land preparation and planting costs once in every 8 or 10 years.

“Just to make a comparison with rice, on the high side, the farmer currently gets around US$900 gross revenue annually for 1 acre of land under rice, and to get this, land preparation and planting has to be done twice. (Two crops per year)

“We should not make the same mistake by privatising the industry the way GPL was privatised, in my view, the power company should have been privatised in such a way so that every consumer be given an opportunity to become a shareholder,” Subnauth said.

The primary objective of any Government should be to empower and enrich the citizenry, he said, and on that note, he called for GuySuCo lands to be converted into schemes like Black Bush Polder and be given to the sugar workers and medium and large scale farmers.

The Upper Corentyne Chamber of Commerce President said by doing this, sugar workers will be able to make choices as to whether they will continue to farm sugarcane or rent their plots to other farmers.

“This will also open up new areas and ventures for the local private sector to
provide harvesting and transportation services among others to farmers.
I would also recommend that factories be divested to local and foreign investors with conditions that local farmers and factory workers be given the opportunity to become shareholders. With the opening up of the industry, more new and improved processing facilities for sugarcane will spring up around the country and this will ensure a secure future for sugar cane,” Subnauth said.