Introduction
In last week’s column I presented a graph, which illustrated both the downward trend and the wide variations in sugar production for Guyana over the last half-century or so. To be sure, the compound annual rate of decline in sugar production for this period was minus one percent. I also observed at the conclusion of the column that the targeted average annual output was set at 450,000 metric tonnes per year, after the Skeldon Sugar Modernization Programme (SSMP) was completed. Regrettably, actual output last year was still substantially below this targeted level, years after the SSMP should have been executed.
If readers examined the targeted annual production levels for the years 2005-2010, they would find that during those six years the actual annual production had averaged about 47,000 metric tonnes, or 17 percent,