News: Barbados sugar industry to stay

(TN 20/04/2006) Bridgetown -Barbados will not be following T&T and St Kitts and Nevis in abandoning its 300-year-old sugar industry.

And Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Senator Erskine Griffith has sent a message to all detractors that Barbados’ transformed sugar cane industry will be a viable one.

“That closing the sugar industry is not our mandate. Our mandate is to transform the industry through diversifying it into a viable operation, maintain as many jobs as we can, and add some new jobs because there will be new skills required,” he told the press following the opening Tuesday of a regional sugar seminar organised by the Caribbean Renewable Energy Development Programme and the Barbados Agricultural Management Company.

“The exogenous risk element will always be there, but the evidence suggests that the overall returns from the transformed industry will more than compensate for associated risk,” Griffith had said in his feature address at the three-day Combined Heath and Power for the Caribbean Sugar Cane Industry seminar.

“The sugar cane project is often cited by those who would wish to see us do nothing as an ambitious project; and some even question whether it can be successfully accomplished.

“The lack of experience with the production of electricity from biomass, or the production of ethanol, is often cited as severe limitations, but in my view, if we do not grasp this opportunity to transform the industry into a viable and profitable one, we will lose it forever,” he said to farmers, renewable energy experts, and sugar technologists at Savannah Hotel, Hastings, Christ Church.

The minister said the transformed industry would be sustainable because the projected biofuels and specialty sugars would be for domestic consumption and already established niche markets.

Griffith expressed confidence Government would secure the Bds$400 million needed to transform the industry and construct the multi-purpose production plant in Bulkeley, St George, by the end of 2008.

“In terms of funding, we’ve had preliminary discussions so far with the Caribbean Development Bank and the response has been very favourable. We’ve had discussions with the European Investment Bank, and Citibank, and also there’s a private investor that has put together a group to provide the entire amount that we need as bridging finance.

“So we’ve looked at a number of sources already,” he said.