Editorial: We can make sugar profitable

WHEN Daniel Best, the Director of Projects at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), announced recently a CDB grant to explore the production of granulated sugar in the region, it highlighted the pressing need to move this century old industry to another level. Mr. Best said that the Barbados-based CDB is approving a sum of at least Bds$200 000 to undertake the study on the likelihood of replacing Plantation White sugar with granulated sugar.

It raises the question: why after more than 300 years of producing raw sugar, the Caribbean has still not been able to manufacture granulated sugar for which there is a demand in the region.

Most of the sugar produced in the Caribbean is sold to Europe. The funny thing about this set-up is that some of that sugar is then refined by European manufacturers, who then re-exports the refined product back to the Caribbean. It is one of the most disturbing arrangements where countries in the industry have fallen down.

Late Jamaica Economist, George Beckford, had described this state of affairs in the book he wrote, titled, Persistent Poverty. In that publication he gave meaning to the plantation society, which was developed and maintained for the sole purpose of some form of externally-oriented production – Sugar in the case of the Caribbean.

The CDB’s Best said that currently, the region imports two-thirds of the estimated 320 000 tons of the refined sugar consumed in the Caribbean. Therefore, by his reasoning and a position that makes sense, if plantation white sugar can be substituted for refined granulated sugar, regional producers can capture a larger share of that market segment. In doing so, producers will be able to save their countries much needed foreign exchange which to this day is in short supply.

From this vantage point, we hope that the project will be successful and add more buoyancy to the industry, rather than proving to be another setback.

If we take the industry in Barbados, there have been several instances in the past where projects have been spoken of in transforming the sugar industry to provide diverse products. Sad to say, these approaches to diversification have not borne fruit.

Back in the early 1970s, there was a cane separation project undertaken at the then Uplands Sugar Factory in St. John. The aim of the project was to produce materials from which to manufacture a kind of board for building purposes, and animal feed using bagasse. Nothing came from that. There were other trials down through the years, aimed at developing fertilisers, electricity, ethanol, animal feed (again) from the sugar cane , with the result being no headway made.

It was also thought than once the European Union had granted trade preferences to Caribbean sugar producers since the Lome Convention in the early 1970s, they would have used the opportunity to reform the industry, seek out additional markets, and use research and development to explore other products from the sugar cane. Again, nothing major was done. When, therefore, it became unprofitable to carry on the production of sugar, many countries opted out.

Nowadays, only Barbados, Belize, Guyana and Jamaica are still in sugar production. The most that can be hoped for is that out of this study will spring something very worthwhile. The region needs it.