Uitvlugt struggles to 18,599 tonnes

Dec 08, 2020 News

– GuySuCo on course to industry low of 89,000

Uitvlugt estate’s dam and field badly flooded.

Uitvlugt cane harvester resorted to the cut-and-carry method to salvage cane ahead of heavy rains.

Kaieteur News – Uitvlugt Estate, West Coast Demerara is rapidly winding down for the second crop of 2020 bringing the corporation’s total annual production of sugar to 85,531 metric tonnes (MT) as of Sunday, December 6, 2020.
According to the state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), the industry is on course to achieving 89,000 MT of sugar before the crop closes in two weeks.
Uitvlugt Estate, one of the three operational estates managed by GuySuCo, has concluded its
production for the second crop of 2020 with a total of 18,599.4 MT as of Sunday.
With complaints that the factory has been beyond inefficient for this crop, Estate Manager, Yudhisthira Mana, explained that while the estate experienced several challenges in the cultivation as a result of inclement weather during the latter part of the crop and the factory due to a lack of timely access to spare parts, employees must be commended for working diligently for harvesting all of the available sugar cane.
This resulted in zero amounts being carried over into the first crop of 2021.
The Uitvlugt Estate cultivates and manages a total of 6,006 hectares of sugar cane of which
several members of the Private Cane Farmers’ Association are controlling 1,750 hectares.
In outlining the challenges of the second crop, the Estate Manager disclosed that as a result of
the massive factory downtime earlier in the crop (some 430 hours mainly due to lack of spares),
sugarcane grinding was stalled for more than eight days which impacted the tonnes cane to tonnes sugar ratio (tc/ts).
Yesterday, farmers told Kaieteur News that this impacted them as it took 18 tonnes of sugarcane to produce one tonne of sugar, an unacceptable ratio.
“However, all technical issues are actively being addressed going forward with the support of G$3 billion in capital investments from the Government of Guyana,” GuySuCo said in a statement yesterday on the state of affairs of the industry.
“In 2021, there will be a continuation of these capital investments after three years of minimal
investments under the prior administration. During the latter stage of harvesting, sugar production at the estate was also threatened due to the inclement weather that prevailed resulting in the fields being inundated and the inability to burn the canes before harvesting and operation of the bell loaders.”
GuySuCo said that in acknowledging the favourable industrial relations climate, it also wanted to express gratitude to all workers for their commitment to improving sugar production despite
the many challenges.
GuySuCo also said that it is assuring “that all measures are taken to improve both infrastructure and other conditions for 2021 and beyond.”
At present, Uitvlugt Estate employs a total of 1,403 workers.