Sugar and a Holistic Approach to Agriculture

Industrial production is a globally competitive economic activity that relies on a multiplicity of factors to produce a product that is competitive in price and quality. The inputs are raw materials, labour, energy and the cost of capital.  The sugarcane industry in Barbados is no exception. With the lack of economies of scale, high cost of energy and labour and other structural inefficiencies there is no escaping the fact that Barbados is one of the highest cost producers of sugarcane and sugar in the world.

By starting with a high cost raw material, sugarcane grown in Barbados, any finished product be it sugar, molasses, bio-fuels or any esoteric byproduct will also be high cost and uncompetitive. We cannot escape the underlying high cost structure of sugarcane cultivation and transportation that cascades through the production cycle to produce expensive finished products. Added to this, is the excessive manpower cost of production in the two remaining sugar factories that places Bajan sugar in the unenviable position of being the most expensive sugar in the world.

Are we now to believe that by some alchemy we can produce cost competitive byproducts from sugar cane by investing $200 million in plant and equipment? To make such a suggestion requires a total suspension of logic and rational thought.

If sugar cane cultivation is to continue in Barbados we have to recognize that price support or subsidy for sugarcane will be necessary on a continuing basis. The level of this subsidy has skyrocketed in recent years and has placed an enormous burden on the government’s finances; a burden that has been exacerbated by the current financial crisis and the contraction of the economy.

The sugar industry, however, cannot be seen in isolation from the rest of the farming community that produces a wide range of food products and livestock. There is also an esthetic value in the continued cultivation of sugarcane that pays dividends for our hospitality industry and also impacts upon our sense of order and belonging to a productive society. There is not one of us that does not view with dismay a tract of land that has been left to run wild with bush, vines and small trees. It sends a message of abandonment, a sense of waste and a loss of hope that is an undeniable cost to the community.

Given the urgent need for us to improve our food security and to strengthen our agricultural productivity we must design a framework that encourages investment and attracts people of technical and managerial ability through the opportunity for financial reward that is equal to other sectors of the economy. In so doing, we should provide meaningful and accountable support for all sectors of the agricultural community that discourages abuse of the system.

I do not advocate writing a blank cheque with a never ending escalation of cost, but a hard headed approach to supporting farming in Barbados with a range of initiatives that take into account a full cost benefit analysis to the society and the development of our economy. In so doing we must deal with specifics and empirical evidence and not speculative dreaming about ephemeral silver bullets and wildly improbable estimates of productivity increases.

It goes without saying that a new multi-sector approach to reducing crop and livestock theft must be put in place. We must ensure that the meat sold in Cheapside has not been stolen from a farmer and vigorously address the scourge of criminal activity aimed at our farming community. Without such an initiative financial support for farming will fail.

It is not a time to dust off old narrowly focused remedies that did not work or encouraged corruption; it is not a time for vague expressions of support and plasters on sores. A fresh approach is needed with specific goals and actions to be taken that provide an interlocking support structure for the whole food production community. Above all there is a need for leadership to drive the process and to generate a buy in from the general public in support of stimulus for the farmers of Barbados.

phillip.goddard@braggadax.com

Climate Change Revisited

I have always tried to keep an open mind on the climate change debate as it has become increasingly politicized and seized upon as the cause célèbre of our times by those that advocate global redistribution of wealth. The story line thus far is that man is the primary cause of climate change and we need to act with great urgency to reduce carbon dioxide emissions thus reversing the primary causes of global warming. The greatest evil in this story book is coal that produces more energy at a lower cost than any other fuel in the United States, China and India. This is followed by oil and to a much lesser extent natural gas. The bottom line is that all hydrocarbon based fuel should be avoided to save the planet.

From the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 to the planned Climate Change Conference in Panama this coming October there has been a series of conferences and a plethora of solutions to reverse man’s impact on the global climate. Many of these solutions call for the developed world to provide funding in one way or another for the developing world to reduce carbon emissions or to save rain forests and encourage reforestation to absorb CO2 emissions.

There is much at stake in the global climate change business. Many have hitched their wagon to this train for either political gain or economic enrichment or both. The science supporting climate change theories and the empirical evidence has been patchy and in some instances contradictory. In extreme cases some of the data has been distorted to prove a predetermined conclusion. All of this has created a cacophony of competing opinions about the reality of both climate change and its causes.

In an effort to keep up with the issue I have read countless books and articles on the subject and engaged in long discussions with petroleum industry experts, oceanographers and climatologists who have long been engaged in research and analysis of climate change data. As a result I had concluded that the problem was so large and complex that we were just nibbling at the edge of the pie of knowledge and reaching conclusions with insufficient data. Having done so, we are in the process of applying corrective action that could be truly counterproductive and play havoc with the global economy.

Most recently, NASA has released conclusions of a study utilizing data collected by NASA’s Terra satellite between the years 2000 and 2011 and supported with data collected since 1985 from other satellites. It now appears that far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric CO2 trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed. This is a triumph of real world data over that of computer modeled assumptions that have led to alarmist conclusions on which governments around the world have relied on to shape their policy decisions.


It will be interesting to see how the recent conclusions of NASA based on the actual evidence from multiple satellite sources over 25 years will affect the discussions in Panama and later on in the year in South Africa. But as Galileo discovered some time ago theological positions trumps real world evidence.

phillip.goddard@braggadax.com