January 28, 2015
Sugaronline
With Cabinet having already approved the financing for the multipurpose sugar factory, Minister of Agriculture, Dr. David Estwick says he is set to meet stakeholders as early as Wednesday to discuss Government's five to ten-year plan to sustain both the sugar and non-sugar aspects of agriculture, according to Barbados' Advocate newspaper.
Dr. Estwick told those attending a Democratic Labour Party's St. James South Branch Meeting on Sunday evening, that the approval was given on January 8, 2015 and they are now in the process of finalising the funding for the field side of the Barbados Cane Industry Restructuring Project.
Speaking to the media after the meeting, Dr. Estwick noted that the funding that has been approved will be provided by National Standard Financing. This will be by way of a public-private partnership, he explained, where that entity will inject foreign direct investment to the tune of US$250 million.
"[Therefore] Cabinet has approved us to proceed in regards to moving towards wrapping up the details of the contract, so we can move with some haste to demolish the old factory and start the construction of the new multipurpose sugar factory. I am looking to see if I can possibly get all of that in about five months or so, given that a lot of the pre-work has been done," he said.
The Minister further explained that the funding element has two parts - the first part being the value added multipurpose factory and second the field side, where money will be earmarked to bring fallow lands back into production. He explained that the figure to rehabilitate those lands will be around B$72 million (US$36 million) and allow for a five-year field upgrade plan to bring the yields and total cane production annually up to 300,000 to 350,000 tonnes of cane per year.
The Agriculture Minister's comments came as he pointed out that every field not under production is undermining the country's capacity to produce food domestically. With that in mind, he explained that moving to a sugar cane industry will see Barbados in the first phase producing high-end consumption sugars, sugar for export, bulk sugar for domestic consumption, high-end molasses for the rum industry and 25MW of electricity annually for the grid. The second phase, he added, will be more along the lines of bio-medical products, noting that among other things, the sugar cane plant is the richest source of Vitamin B12, cholesterol lowering drugs and treatment for enlarged prostate.
"We've got our heads stuck into this colonial view that all the sugar cane plant is, is to produce a sweetener, rubbish! What I want to happen now is that the young biochemists in Barbados, the young scientists and so on, take up the challenge and go out there and start working with the Government with regards to creating these value added products from sugar cane that we have. I am comfortable therefore, that once we can move through phase one and into phase two, that will create significant job opportunities for our young students at the universities and other persons," he added.
Meanwhile, he further revealed that also to be a topic of discussion at tomorrow's meeting, is that the Governance Committee of Cabinet has recently approved the new praedial larceny legislation, and once the full Cabinet signs off on it, hopefully at its next meeting, it will be ready to go to Parliament.
He said the legislation will provide certain provisions not currently in law, such as traceability, certification and penalties.
Reference: http://sugaronline.com/website_contents/view/1239160#sthash.Nr4TFZNw.dpuf