The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) has commenced its first crop for 2022 with the hopes of achieving its targets as well as to bounce back from the devastating floods of 2021.
Albion Estate is the only estate which has commenced harvesting, with the intention of going into production this week. The crop season commenced on Friday last but the other grinding estates at Uitvlugt and Blairmont are yet to come into production.
Stabroek News was told that Blairmont is scheduled to commence operations later this week while Uitvlugt is aiming to enter into production by the end of the month.
GuySuCo has set a target of 66,000 tonnes of sugar for the new production year. This figure represents a sharp drop from the 2021 target of 97,420 tonnes and the revised figure of 70,000 tonnes.
In the first crop of 2022, the sugar producer has set a target of 21,000 metric tonnes while in the second crop the corporation is looking to produce 45,000 tonnes of sugar. The grinding estates last year produced a combined output of 29,650 and 28,345 tonnes of sugar in the first and second crop, respectively.
A source in the industry told Stabroek News that Albion will be tasked with producing over 10,000 tonnes, which accounts for just over 50 per cent while the two other grinding estates at Uitvlugt and Blairmont will produce the remainder. The same methodology for targets will be applied to the second crop.
With sugar cane being a perennial crop, the source explained that they expect to harvest enough cane to meet their target in the second crop of 2022.
Devastated by the floods, GuySuCo in 2021 only managed to produce 57,995 tonnes of sugar.
Stabroek News was told that the three estates had to reduce their production targets due to the decline in yields and that weather conditions have contributed tremendously to the drop in sugar production for the current and last crop.
The disastrous output along with continuing subventions to the industry from the state and an absence of viable options for the still-shuttered Skeldon factory and estate, will pile pressure on the government for radical decisions to be made this year.
