PRIVATE FARMERS are ready for tomorrow’s start of the annual sugar cane harvest – but they’re not jumping for joy.
Patrick Bethell, the chairman of Barbados Sugar Industry Limited (BSIL), says one problem is that the harvest is starting late and the longer the canes stay in the ground the more losses cane growers are likely to face.
He told the DAILY NATION: “When you let [canes] continue to grow, they dry out. Then it takes more canes to produce a ton of sugar.”
Bethell said all of the farmers represented by BSIL “are ready and we have been ready for a long time for the harvest to start”.
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