Smooth progress on 2023 crop

It has been smooth sailing during the first week of the 2023 sugar cane harvest, says chief executive officer of the Barbados Agricultural Management Company (BAMC) Orlanda Atherley.
He said that things were going “quite well” and based on the quality of cane Portvale Sugar factory was receiving daily, the facility was making sugar a lot faster than it did compared to last year.
On Monday at the BAMC’s headquarters in Warrens St Michael, Atherley said grinding commenced at the Blowers, St James factory last Tuesday, the day after the harvest started, and 7 400 tonnes of cane was ground at a rate of 104 tonnes per hour. Three days later the factory started producing “saleable” sugar.
Even though all the farmers, including government-run farms had not started cutting canes due to incomplete refurbishing of equipment, Atherley said he was satisfied with how things were progressing.
“It is on stream and going well. The rains have gone off. The difference between this year and last year and perhaps why we have been able to drop sugar a lot earlier is that this year we followed the science, we started the crop when the cane was hitting its peak. It will probably take another three weeks of drying out for the canes to hit a 22 brix [level], which is peak maturity. The average was 19 and the factory said they would take the cane at 19,” he said.
It is estimated that 107 000 tonnes of cane would produce 5 229 tonnes of sugar and 7 100 tonnes of molasses.
Last year, 5 000 tonnes of sugar and 7 000 tonnes of molasses were produced from just over 94 000 tonnes of cane.
Atherley said that the factory would also be producing a ‘C’ molasses to the rum industry which was of better quality than imported molasses.
He added that the employees at the factory were working around-the-clock to ensure the factory was up to par. He said extensive work had been done to make sure the machinery was ready to accept canes. This included repairs to the factory’s boilers.
(SZB)