With less than a month remaining until the end of GuySuCo’s second crop, approximately only 65.9% of the cane has been harvested across the industry.
According to information coming from the sugar company, as it stands, 82,287 tonnes of cane have been harvested across the industry from the second crop target of 124,844 tonnes.
The updated figure brings the yearly production to some 131,893 tonnes of cane, which includes the 49,606 tonnes of sugar from the first crop, which was a significant short fall from its target of 74,172 tonnes.
Last year, GuySuCo finished the year with 183,000 tonnes of cane, falling short of its target by roughly 56,000 tonnes. The tally also represented 48,000 tonnes less than the company’s 2015 output of 231,000 tonnes.
Despite the industry having an overall attendance of approximately 60% for the second crop, the attendance has been dropping constantly over the past few weeks, with last week recording just 48% at work across the industry.
At the start of the month, the industry had recorded an average attendance of 57%.
With the crop set to finish on December 22, the Blairmont and Uitvlugt Estates have already completed their entire second crop and are currently listed as Out-Of-Crop.
It is uncertain whether the sugar company will be able to complete the crop with the current attendance.
GuySuCo Public Relations Officer Audreyanna Thomas had told Stabroek News a few weeks ago that the company was optimistic that it would be able to meet its target by the end of the crop.
She had also said that it was still imploring the workers from the industry to up their attendance so that the target could be reached. “It is going to be a challenge but I think we are going to achieve our target. What we are trying to change is our strategy as we go along. When one estate, which would be concluding their crop early finishes, we are going to use some of their harvesters and send them to other estates. So, like earlier in the crop we had sent about 200 harvesters from the East Demerara Estate to Uitvlugt and that helped to boost the production,” Thomas had said.
