Private cane farmers not interested in running industry

With Government looking to divest the sugar industry, it appears that its assets were not attractive enough to generate interest from private cane farmers.

Chairman of the Barbados Sugar Industry Limited (BSIL) Mark Sealy told Barbados TODAY that his organisation did not submit any proposals to the Government to take over operations from the Barbados Agricultural Management Company (BAMC), the state agency responsible for the management, production and sale of sugar.

“We had a consultant company that came down here and did quite a bit of work and so on, and we were also doing some financial numbers which are nearing completion but besides that, no, we haven’t submitted any [proposals],” he said.

In fact, Sealy said last week’s announcement that Barbados Sustainable Energy Co-operative Society Limited (Co-op Energy) was on track to take over BAMC and its assets was news to him.

“It is not something that we are aware of. I’m not aware that it is a done deal. In fact, I don’t know anything about the deal so I really can’t comment at the moment. However, what I can say is that, certainly, we would be very pleased to receive better pricing on cane and timely payment on cane,” he said.

Last week, president of Co-op Energy Retired Lieutenant Colonel Trevor Browne announced that he was “more than 99 per cent certain that the co-op will take over the industry”, adding that the Government just had to tie up its ends.

Minister of Agriculture Indar Weir declined to give details on the negotiations, saying he had to first make a presentation to Cabinet.

Asked if the co-op had subsequently reached out to BSIL, Sealy said: “No, we haven’t met anybody on it.”

As it relates to next year’s crop, Sealy said his organisation had requested meetings with the relevant authorities regarding the logistics of harvesting and were awaiting correspondence.

(SZB)