Dear Editor,
It is fair to say that for some time now, because of Guyana’s increasing sugar production costs coupled with the low world sugar price, the future for sugar without the EU price support was decidedly doubtful, even as far back as the 1980s.
The sugar industry diversification programme initiated in the 1980s and supported at its inception by the then political administration was a clear strategic policy to deal with the economic problem that was looming. Although GuySuCo using its own financial and management resources embarked on the diversification programme in spite of resistance by some elements even in its own management, the programme was suddenly terminated towards the end of the nineteen eighties. By then a run of unfavourable weather patterns, increasingly poor labour supply or turnout, deteriorating work standards, and general industrial instability, resulted in a steady decline in sugar production.
By that time the government was in negotiation with the IMF/World Bank for what turned out to be both national debt forgiveness and funding for sugar rehabilitation. The terms agreed by the IMF/World Bank stipulated the immediate closure of the diversification programme so that, it was said, undivided attention may be given to sugar. It was also stipulated as part of the condition for funding support that the management of the industry be placed in the hands of what was deemed to be more capable and expatriate expertise.
It is now clear that even the short-term benefits were not in favour of the industry, but it was the contracted management that was provided with lucrative short-term employment. Needless to say the inevitable result was the beginning of the end of the sugar industry as we knew it.
In the long term the opportunity was lost to acquire at an earlier stage the requisite experience, as well as establish the infrastructure to set up on a viable basis those diverse activities that would replace, on a comparable scale, most of the sugarcane cropping which was no longer economic. A few of those activities that were formally abandoned by the company either continued outside the ambit of sugar, eg, aquaculture, or benefited from the imported genetic inputs made through GuySuCo, eg, sheep and dairy breeding stock. Although these are only the more visible examples, how much more would have been achieved had these and others been given the active support of the existing infrastructure, initial development funding and management discipline of sugar.
What happens after the sugar industry in its current form is dismantled? There must be a short term as well as a long term plan to translate or transfer the resources past, present and future to economic activities that will have a positive impact on development in Guyana. Most new and in particular innovative activities, to stand some chance of success, require some level of applied research, be it industrial, agricultural or sociological. Multi-discipline teams in different areas of interest will have to be assembled to work on identified projects. These projects need not be innovative or require fundamental research, as the intention should not be to re-invent the wheel, far from it. Attention must be paid to realizing visible practical results in less than four years, otherwise these efforts could be a complete waste of time and resources.
These then are some of the challenges that face Guyana in the immediate post monoculture-GuySuCo period.
Yours faithfully,
Fritz C McLean
Former GuySuCo Director
Agricultural Research and Crop
Diversification and latterly
Corporate Planning
