The 2025 sugar harvest got off to a slow start yesterday but is expected to pick up.
At Portvale Factory, St James, large trucks laden with cut sugar cane lined up to be weighed, a testament to the weighbridge being fully operational following issues with certification which caused the delay of the start of the harvest by a day.
While manager Marlon Munroe, was in a meeting and unavailable for comment, a worker, who was not identified, said the first trucks rolled in around 8 a.m.
“This is the first day, we just started. Everybody ain’t start up yet, so it’s a little trickle but it should pick up,” he said.
On Starcom Network, chairman of the Barbados Sugar Industry Limited, Mark Sealy, said he was hopeful this year would at least equal last year’s yield.
“I think we had estimated somewhere in the region of about 66 000 tonnes, which is a little bit down on last year. But that is an estimate and we are seeing some reasonably good canes in the field. So I’m thinking that you never can tell. We might be able to deliver a bit more than that.”
Improvement
The chairman said he was pleased the start of this year’s harvest was earlier than last year, though it was still not quite as early as they would like.
“We’re a couple of weeks earlier this year, which is very good so we congratulate BESCO (the Barbados Energy and Sugar Company Ltd) and the factory on that. I think we’d prefer to start a little bit earlier, but, of course, the cane has to be sampled and we’ll take [instruction] from ARVTU (the Agronomy Research and Variety Testing Unit).
“But certainly, it’s an improvement, so we’re quite happy with that. Our guys have started cutting. Of course, everybody is not completely on stream, we still have one farm which is looking to try and get a part into the harvester, but that should be in shortly. I think all systems are a go today (yesterday),” he said.
Technical difficulties
Over at Constant Farms, St George, workmen were cutting cane while avoiding cow itch. One of them, who requested anonymity, admitted they began late.
“We usually start at 6 a.m. but today we started around ten because of some technical difficulties. Still, we expect to do well and the earlier start of the harvest than last time is way better for us,” he said.
The worker said they had already harvested 170 tonnes of cane out of the more than 3 800 estimated overall tonnes available at Constant and was optimistic they would get through it all, though he said this also depended on equipment failure, including at Portvale, and weather.
As for cow itch, another worker explained the best way to deal with the intrusive vine.
“Cow itch is a problem every year. The best thing is to clean/spray/pull it up when the cane still short, but as the cane grows and you can’t get at it, then it will spring back. So when it is harvest time, make sure you are wearing protective gear,” he said.
(CA)
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