GuySuCo to mechanise on grander scale – Dr Ramsammy

Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy said he was disappointed that the sugar industry has failed to meet its target for another year, contending that while he does not want to blame anyone, the industry would have to make fundamental changes and shift its operational thinking to turn things around.
He said for 2013, mechanisation in the industry will take place on a grander scale as the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) grapples with an unstable workforce and poor weather.

 “It’s about fundamental changes that the industry will have to make… the industry simply does not have the opportunity days in which to produce sugar,” Dr Ramsammy told a press conference on Saturday.
He noted that the industry is dealing with two major issues, one of which is labour shortages. He said this issue continues to impede the sugar industry and has forced the government to introduce mechanisation in some of the operations.
The minister noted that there was an ancestral link between the labour shortages in the sugar industry, pointing out that many of the older generation were resolute in their thinking that future generations would not work in sugar fields. He stated that “Uitvlugt will never get 900 workers to work in the field; Enmore will never have the 1200 workers that it needs”, in terms of maximising worker capabilities in production output.
The second issue the industry is grappling with Dr Ramsammy said is the changing weather patterns. He noted that GuySuCo has to conduct “major restructuring” if it wants to continue operations into the future.
He stated that the change in weather patterns have been met with no movement in the sugar industry, which is dependent on specific weather conditions.
Dr Ramsammy stated that sugar crops have moved from 13 weeks to six weeks, and the second batch has moved from 18 weeks to 11 weeks. He noted that these statistics indicate that there is now a “30 to 40 per cent of opportunity loss”.
The minister said machinery and mechanisation must now make up for the inadequacies, stating that machines must now do 13 weeks of work in eight weeks. He stated that if machines were used for a specific portion of time, and the time was then reduced by half, then machinery would need to be doubled.
Dr Ramsammy stated that as a result of this situation, 83 per cent of the fields has been reoriented to facilitate mechanisation on a grander scale. He alluded to major changes to the sugar industry in 2013 and onward, stating that when he had fully implemented the plan, “no more estates will be closed for the next 10 years”.