Tufton

AGRICULTURE MINISTER Dr Christopher Tufton is praying for rain. And at the same time, he isn't.

The contrasting weather patterns being experienced in central Jamaica, where there is drought, and Westmoreland, where there is too much rain, are threatening Jamaica's ability to meet its sugar quota for European consumers.

"The Clarendon-St Catherine belt - the Bernard Lodge Monymusk area - has experienced continuous drought conditions for the better part of eight or nine months. It has impacted the quality of the cane," Tufton said in Parliament Tuesday.

He added: "Frome is not being affected by the drought; we have adequate rainfall. In fact, we are hoping that the rains will subside at Frome so that the fields can be dried out; the sucrose content can go up from additional sunshine, so that we can start taking off from December 7."

But Roger Clarke, opposition spokesman on agriculture, told Tufton that the high volume of rainfall plaguing Westmoreland may affect the juice quality of sugar cane to be processed at the Frome factory.

"I must warn you that the excess rain that you have been having there is going to affect your juice quality tremendously. You might be losing in Clarendon because of drought, you might get the canes in that side of the island, but the continuous rain that you have been having is going to impact negatively as far as your juice quality is concerned," Clarke said.

Jamaica has signed a deal with Swiss company Eridana to provide 79,000 tonnes of sugar from the three estates which government operates.

Eridania has committed to prepay US$15 million (J$1.3 billion) for the production of sugar, which it will purchase at a minimum price of €335 (J$41,540) per tonne.

Profit

Jamaica and Eridania would share the estimated €30-million gross profit. The estimated production of the 79,000 tonnes of sugar is US$21 million (J$1.9 billion).

The agriculture minister has said it was not likely that Jamaica would miss the target by much, but noted that if that happened, the Government had a contingency plan.

"If we miss the target, it would be more an issue of the drought conditions along that belt that would cause that," Tufton said of the central Jamaica area.

He said that private sugar producers are have agreed to fill the shortfall if the government entities failed to produce the sugar as stated in the Eridania agreement.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com