IN THE coming days, it is probable that a high-level mission may travel from the Caribbean to a number of European capitals to stress the region's financial needs if the sugar industry is to be transformed.
The window for changing European thinking on sugar is closing rapidly. Within a very short period, the European Commission will announce how much money it will make available for the 18 ACP sugar protocol countries. This will almost certainly be far below the amount required. Soon afterwards, the European Parliament and Europe's member states will decide on the criteria that will determine how much Jamaica and other ACP producers will receive.
In doing so, they will also be indicating the extent to which the industry's proposed restructuring costs will be met by Europe and how much will have to come from Government, multilateral agencies or in the form of investments from the private sector.
But even before the dust settles, the industry has to move rapidly to enhance the competitiveness and productivity of the whole cane sugar sector in Jamaica. Only in this way will it be able to make viable its plans for the production of ethanol, rum, co-generation and the various other value-added applications necessary to sustain its long-term future. Whether it has the management capabilities to do so remains uncertain.
The transition to a modernised industry will require a change in the mix of skills in the work force. Mechanisation has to replace manual processes in both field and factory. This and the plans to diversify into value added by products will require the recruitment of workers with new skills and the retraining or retrenchment of others.
All of this will require not just much greater flexibility on the part of the unions, multitasking and a younger workforce but a new profit-oriented and dynamic approach to the management of the industry.
The private sector has demonstrated on its estates at Appleton and elsewhere that it has the capacity to create an efficient industry. The same cannot be said of the public sector. The Sugar Company of Jamaica in particular will have to undergo a sea of changes if the industry is to achieve by 2010 the efficiency gains that will ensure sugar has a future.
What is required is a change of psychology that recognises the innovation, attention to detail and a clear understanding of the bottom line and day-to-day management. Without this, the industry will founder, with alarming consequences for Jamaica.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
