2009 sugar record is shocking

[posted 8 Feb 2009, 1300]

Fiji Sugar Corporation’s performance for the 2009 crushing season is simply shocking with almost half the cane crushed reduced to molasses instead of sugar.

End of season figures released by CEO Deo Saran reveal its worst performance on record with FSC producing barely 168,000 tonnes of sugar from 2.25 tonnes of cane – 40,355 tonnes less than the previous year.

Molasses produced was 136,000 tonnes compared to 120,000 tonnes for the 2008 season. The conversion ratio of cane to sugar (TCTS) was abnormally high at 13.4 compared with 11 for the previous season.

The high TCTS reflected serious malfunctioning of the mills and inability to efficiently convert cane to sugar. It was not, as the Commissioner Western Joeli Cawaki claims, due to the poor quality of cane supplied.

FSC and the State should stop looking for scapegoats in blaming the farmers. Mill breakdowns and shutdowns were at a record high this season and there is ample evidence of the thousands of tonnes of cane juice that were dumped into the Ba and Labasa Rivers and at Lautoka.

The extremely high TCTS and the excess quantity of molasses produced clearly show that the mills were not operating efficiently. As a comparison, it might be worth while looking at production figures in 1998 when 256,000 tonnes of sugar were produced from 2.1m tonnes of cane.

It is on record that FSC failed miserably to meet its sugar quota to the EU for 2009 – shipping only 152,785 tonnes; Fiji has a 250,000 tonne comittment with Tate & Lyle but can supply up to 300,000 tonnes.

FSC is already bankrupt with a $40million loss for the 2009 financial year and accumulated losses standing at $68 million – another loss this year will simply be academic.

But growers will incur close to $70m in losses for the season equivalent to $30 per tonne through no fault of theirs and at a time when the EU price for sugar has come down by 36% and production costs escalated.

It is clear now why industry institutions that ensured accountability were dismantled. Who will now hold FSC accountable for the massive loss it has caused cane farmers?

Under the sugar Master Award FSC has to compensate growers for such losses. But who will pursue this compensation claim on behalf of the growers? Even the growers’ unions have been targeted with their financial base cut off.

Between the two of them, FSC and the State have run the sugar industry into the ground and stifled any questions about what is happening.