Dear Editor,
One notes the reportedly informed complaint about the social and financial depletion of the families of sugar workers whose employment was terminated on the closure of three sugar estates in 2017. The writer had at the time submitted quite a comprehensive argument to the decision-makers about the obvious futility of such an exercise, moreso as it defied the logic of having a Special Purpose Unit without any related experience to re-operationalise them with rehired, demotivated employees – in the vaguest hope of attracting allegedly keen foreign investors. It was a fateful non-starter, destined to go nowhere. Of course there was never a response. But one pauses to reflect on related decision-deficits of the previous administration that unsurprisingly, have been too conveniently forgotten. The transition of workers from Diamond to LBI/Ogle Estate, the consequential merger of LBI/Ogle and Enmore Estate into East Demerara Estate, all preceding an attempt to close Wales, against which at the time Messr C.N. Sharma led a successful protest complaint.
Then who could forget the elephantine failure that was the Skeldon (Factory) Project which resulted not only in the loss of employment, but in the substantial debt into which several prominent cane farmers (including cooperatives) were thrown; not to mention the deleterious impact on the economy of the Upper Corentyne. It gave cause for the President of the day to publicly proclaim that he would go and run Skeldon factory himself. One reflects on the very deafening silence that has since followed. Of course, the above in no way palliates the last administration’s faux pas. Nevertheless, opportunity is taken to remind the many uninformed of the history of contraction of the sugar industry. However repetitiously, history recounts that sugar was being produced in what is now Guyana, as far back as the 17th century (evidence suggests as early as 1636), when the Dutch were involved, mostly in the Essequibo area.
In the 18th century (circa 1745) sugar plantations began to be established in Demerara; and by the early 19th century there were close to 400. Then through amalgamation followed a progressive reduction to 238 by 1829; 138 by 1890; 80 by 1900; 39 by 1922; 18 by 1967; 11 by 1976 – the year of nationalisation; then to 10 in 1978. Factory operations were also reduced, being proportionately centralised – from 62 sugar factories in 1897 to 21 by 1928; and 10 in 1978 – almost identical with the concentration of the cultivations. By the end of 2010 the disposition of grinding estates was as follows:
● In Berbice – Skeldon Estate; Albion/Port Mourant (the latter half of the name memorialises the Port Mourant Estate which was closed in 1955); Rose Hall Estate – all east of the Berbice River; and Blairmont Estate on the western bank of the river.
● On the East Coast of Demerara was Enmore Estate; La Bonne Intention (LBI)/Ogle Estate which also produced sugar from the canefields of the former Diamond Estate, (whose factory was closed in 1987). LBI/Ogle factory was next closed, and all production concentrated at Enmore under the banner of East Demerara Estates.
● On the West Bank of the Demerara River was Wales Estate; while along the West Coast of Demerara remains Uitvlugt Estate, which produces sugar from cane grown at the once neighbouring cultivation of Leonora Estate, whose factory was closed in 1986.
Sincerely,
E.B. John
