Alluding that the sugar industry has no future, the Alliance For Change (AFC) has announced plans to chart a new path for the sector if it assumes office. Speaking at this party’s press conference today, Executive Member, Kemraj Ramjattan said the party plans to right-size the industry and turn redundant cane cutters into farmers of prawns, peppers, plantains and pumpkins.
Ramjattan said the party has been engaging its support base in the sugar belt through its online platform AFC Berbice on the Move, and the message has been clear: taxpayers’ money cannot be spent wildly on opening new factories or those that were closed.
Ramjattan said it is time to diversify cane fields and retrain cane cutters. In this respect, he noted that the AFC wants to focus on “alternative livelihoods” in which the same land would be given to farmers to cultivate other crops. He said it would be used the implement the AFC’s Four Ps Project: prawns, peppers, pumpkins, and plantains. It should be noted that the government already has an incredibly successful diversification programme which includes a brackish waster shrimp project which has earned the country over $1 billion in revenues.
The AFC member said, “We have done our own analysis, these are specialized crops that can make far more money than sugar, with an intensive agricultural method. And you have to train the people because prawns was deemed the most profitable of them all…” In a brief interview with Guyana Standard, Ramjattan noted the analysis he referened was prepared by former Agriculture Minister, Noel Holder. He said it is a brilliant piece of work which could put the ailing sugar sector on a path to success.
Ramjattan said cane cutters cannot remain in their current vocation for the rest of their lives, it is time to move on.
