Cuban sugar minister Ulises Rosales del Toro said yesterday [Tuesday] that the country will slash the capacity of its sugar industry by 50% and reduce the land used to produce sugar by as much as 60%.
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Low world sugar prices and inefficient production methods have forced the minister and industry to downsize staff, facilities and output capacity.
“We have the capacity to produce ten million tonnes of raw sugar per year but have been producing an average four million tonnes,” Rosales told reporters in Havana.
“We have an over capacity […] that we will reduce by 50%,” he said.
Rosales told Reuters that 2001/2002 sugar output was just over 3.6 million tonnes, compared with 3.53 million tonnes in 2000/2001. He said the sugar industry would continue to use just 40-45% of the land it currently uses, with the rest being turned over to cattle.
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By GlobalDataThis will make sharp inroads into the two million hectares (five million acres) currently planted to sugar cane.
International Sugar Organisation president Peter Baron was also present at the news conference, commenting: “I’m impressed by the political courage such a decision takes, given its possible social consequence.”
The sugar industry is Cuba’s largest, with around 500,000 workers and farmers and 2 million of the country’s 11 million inhabitants dependent on it, Rosales said. However, Reuters reported that Cuba’s sugar minister downplayed the social cost of the reorganisation. He said Cuba had worked for a number of years on plans to find new jobs for workers and was confident no one would be without employment for long.
