FIJI – The Fiji Sugar Corporation has urged sugar farmers to grit their teeth after a devastating few weeks for the industry.

Cane growers have told Radio New Zealand they are “fed up” after Cyclone Winston’s damage to their crops, last week’s flooding and two years of drought.

One representative estimates 70 per cent of farmers are ready to walk away from the industry.

The industry, the country’s largest employer, employs about 40,000 people, with up to 250,000 of the country’s 881,000 population relying on it when extended families are included.

About 80 per cent of the current crop was destroyed, and two of four crushing mills run by state-owned Fiji Sugar, were damaged in Cyclone Winston.

But the executive chairman of the Fiji Sugar Corporation Abdul Khan says relief funds committed by the European Union will be used to resurrect the cane on Viti Levu that was damaged after Winston.

“What we will do with that money is the replanting that we need to put in place to get our crop back up as quickly as possible for 2017.

“Government has also given us Fiji $5 million. We are sourcing that to get planting done quickly, more for seed purpose rather than as mature cane.”

Khan says assessments are still being done after the floods.

He says the industry has been set back by about a year but if planting is done at the appropriate time, from September to November this year, then there should be an improved crop for 2017.

“There will be some people who will be frustrated and it’s understandable and for some people it’s not so much the sugar cane they’ve lost but everything they’ve lost,” he said.

“But at the end of the day I don’t see too many people moving out.”

Khan said the farmers have had ration packs, temporary housing help, and US$500 interest free loans from the Sugar Cane Growers Fund.

Last year’s crop of 1.84 million tonnes of cane produced 222,000 tonnes of raw sugar, one of the country’s lowest harvests.

In 1996, a record 4.4 million tons of cane was crushed.

Around 75 per cent of Fiji’s arable land is planted with sugar cane and the crop is Fiji’s biggest export, valued at $52 million in 2015.

However, that compares with much bigger revenues from tourism and remittances from Fijians working overseas, which are worth about $720 million and $203 million a year respectively, according to the latest data.

Most of Fiji’s sugar exports go to the UK, where they have preferential access under EU support measures, and prices are up to four times the global sugar price.

The EU is due to scrap the measures next year, leaving Fiji to compete head on with sugar producing giants such as Australia, Brazil, India and Thailand.

EU Pacific ambassador Andrew Jacobs has hinted that Brussels might develop proposals to help Fiji.

“The EU recognizes that the sugar industry is very important to Fiji,” he said on February 24, without offering specific measures.

The EU has pledged more than US$23 million over four years to aid the agriculture and sugarcane industry after Cyclone Winston.

Khan says increased mechanisation is also planned to help revitalise the industry.

- PNC sources