EDITORIAL: Getting the BAMC back on track

IT was reported recently that a number of employees of the Barbados Agricultural Management Company (BAMC) had been displaced from their jobs. The reports suggest about 40 employees were severed, although no figure was given for those who opted to go once a package was worked out for them. This episode in the life of the BAMC brings to mind what Landell Mills, a team of European Consultants, had recommended in a study of the BAMC in the context of the local sugar industry in 2011. It was the second study they had done on the industry having undertook one in the late 1980s when successive governments were looking for ways to put the Barbados sugar industry back on course.

With these employees having exited the company, it is now left to see whether the Government will try to implement any of the recommendations the European consultants had left with Barbados. It also raises the question about the future of the company and if it will function as a key player in the sugar industry in the future.
The title of the Landell Mills study is: “The Institutional Review of the Barbados Sugar Industry.” The Report highlights the major finding of the Review, these being the recommendations for improving productivity and efficiency of the agricultural operations of the BAMC, including corporate restructuring and the expected improvements in the financial performance of the organization.

The BAMC is one of two entities which the then administration of Erskine Sandiford (now Sir Lloyd) set up in the early 1990s to deal with the restructuring of the sugar industry. The BAMC was created to manage a number of the sugar plantations that were indebted to the Government. The other agency is the Barbados Agricultural Credit Trust, which would look after the revenue side from the same indebted plantations. Overtime however, it proved costly to the BAMC to operate those plantations and it soon ran up huge amounts of debts.

Contributing to that situation was the state of the Barbados sugar industry, which chalked up financial losses as sugar continued to have issues. High operating costs, poor quality of canes, cane fires, drop in production, and failure on occasions by Barbados to meet its sugar quota to the European Union in accordance with the Sugar Protocol governing African, Caribbean and Pacfic (ACP) supplies to Europe, made the situation worse. Production costs were also higher than the guaranteed price Europe offered ACP producers.

Against this background, Landell Mills made sweeping suggestions for change, including restructuring the company, similar policies for the independent and small farmers, and severing employees to cut cost and to streamline the operations.

In making a case for corporate restructuring, the consultants suggested a consolidation of sugar farms, the establishment of a Food Crop Division, recruitment of managers for key positions (including HR Managers), capital replacement and research. The Food Crop Division within a reconstituted BAMC and with its own resources (personnel and field machinery), would operate as a revenue centre. Once up and running it would contribute to food production at a time when Barbados needed it. The previous Government stayed clear of the proposals and the present one, having cut the staff, will be expected to carry out the reforms as recommended. At least that is what they should do.

Barbados Advocate

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