Cane fires hurting sugar crop

Cane Cutter

Bridgetown.

The spate of cane fires  across Barbados in recent weeks has taken a toll on the sugar sector, over nine percent of all the canes delivered to Barbados' two sugar factories were  burnt.

The  sugar crop has reached the halfway mark, a sugar official told Trakker News that there are too many fires raging across the isand and and is  calling on Barbadians to desist from the burning of canes. 

He stated that the large number of cane fires daily  have kept the fire service extremely busy. 

The official said  the sunny weather has been favourable for the harvest and that with just over four weeks of production completed in this year's crop, Barbados’ has so far produced 5420 tonnes of sugar. 

According to the figures up to March 24th, Andrew’s factory had produced 2998 tonnes of sugar and Portvale 2421 tonnes of the commodity. The official said  it has taken just under 50 thousand tonnes of canes to produce this sugar,

This year's sugar crop which started on Wednesday March 6th is slated to finish at the end of May and officials are hoping that they will reach the just over 18 thousand tonnes target they have set. 

Last year's harvest produced just over 24 thousand tonnes of sugar.