The Guyana Sugar Corporation is aiming to produce 100,000 tonnes of sugar for this year, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha recently announced to residents of Region Six.
Mustapha during an outreach in Black Bush Polder pointed out that there was an increase in sugar production in 2023 as the corporation’s production moved from 40,000 in 2022 to 60,000 in 2023. Part of the increase is attributable to the Rose Hall estate which resumed operations last year.
He said, “This year we have put a target of 100,000 tonnes, we will do a new five thousand hectares of cane back at Skeldon, we are now mechanizing the industry because with the different and more opportunities coming to Berbice, people are going to different sectors and we can’t abandon what we used to do like things like rice, sugar, fruits and vegetables.”
The minister stressed, “We have to continue to produce and we have to also change the way we have been doing these things so that we can do it in a more modern way, in a less labour-intensive way and we can produce more.”
Sources last year had told Stabroek News that the Albion Estate was leading the industry as at November it had produced 28,572 MT. The Blairmont estate had so far produced 17, 210 MT and the other two estates together had produced 9227 MT to bring the industry to its 55,009 MT production in November 2023. Official production figures for each estate last year have not been published.
Sugar output was boosted by the reopening of the Rose Hall Estate in September last year.
In February this year, GuySuCo said that it was moving full speed ahead with converting fields for mechanised planting at the Albion Estate as it works towards profitability. Members of the media were given a tour of the Albion backlands where abandoned cane fields which were once heavily forested are being converted to beds and replanted using mechanisation. Andre Paul, Group Agriculture Engineer, had explained that mechanisation is aimed at reducing operating costs in the long term.
Pointing to the fields that are currently being converted at the Albion Estate, Paul explained initially the fields were narrow Dutch beds running two – three rods in width with the beds running from one cross canal to another. According to him, that was a “short run” with a centre drain at the middle referred to as a four foot in the sugar industry.
“Now these lands would have had some form of vegetation on them so the first activity is to clear the lands, you can do so by two means, the first one is to use a tractor with an implement that we refer to as a trash tray, it would rake all the vegetation out on the dams and they would burn it and remove it from the field, the next stage is that they have ploughed and harrowed the land that will now create some looseness in the soil and will then shape the fields as we see going on here now.”
The plan which is being carried out is to make wider beds for the canes to be planted.
Paul had said that a grader is being used to shape it, “after this would have been completed the next step is to till the soil and that is to create a seed bed that is conducive for” planting.
The project is being carried out by Japarts and there are 2,000 hectares at the location which are being converted.
Estate Manager, Yudhisthira Mana also shared his excitement about the project, explaining that in his entire career, the work within the industry was being carried out by traditional means, however, with a 60% labour force now they have embarked to fill the 40% gap with mechanised planting.
“Having an exercise like this will definitely guarantee us a 20% replanting annually”, he also noted.
